Corruption Watch: Trump’s Net Worth Increased by $7.5 Billion, Wants $230 More Directly from Taxpayers, and His Admin is Buying New Jets

Trump pardoned a convicted titan of the crypto industry who is helping boost his own crypto venture. The Wall Street Journal first broke the news that President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who had been convicted of enabling money laundering while CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange. Before Trump pardoned him, Zhao had spent months shilling for Trump’s cryptocurrency business. “Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto,” Zhao wrote on X when thanking Trump for his pardon.

“The situation has no parallel in American history,” reports The New York Times of Trump demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for previous federal charges brought against him. Trump said of his reported demand, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Yes, it is awfully strange that he’s talking about paying himself $230 million with our tax dollars.

Companies with business with the federal government are buying Trump a ballroom. Trump has demolished the iconic East Wing of the White House, built in 1902, so that he can build a 90,000 square-foot ballroom that he estimates will cost $200 or 300 million dollars. Who’s going to pay for that? CNN reports that corporations such as Palantir, the tech company with ICE contracts, Lockheed Martin, the defense company with U.S. military contracts, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta Platforms, as well individual donors like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone.

GOP political groups are spending at Trump properties, too. NOTUS reports that Trump-aligned political committees have spent heavily at Trump-owned private properties, and total Republican spending at Trump properties is above $1 million since he took office in January. That doesn’t include spending that doesn’t have to be reported to the FEC. “Another example of a complete lack of concern for ethics and doing the right thing,” Drew Pomerance, a member of Patriotic Millionaires, a coalition of wealthy Americans who advocate against the concentration of wealth and political power, told NOTUS. “Can you imagine what Republicans would say if the same scenario was playing out with a Democrat as president? This would be front and center of congressional investigations.”

Trump keeps enriching himself. The Center for American Progress published a real-time tracker of “the cash and gifts that President Trump and his family have received by selling the presidency.” As of this publication, according to the tracker, Trump’s net worth on paper has increased by $7.5 billion thanks to his rapid deregulation of the crypto industry while promoting his family’s crypto ventures. Trump’s overall haul in gifts and cash during the last year is $1.8 billion. The whole tracker is worth the look.

Our tax dollars, luxury jets for Kristi Noem. The Department of Homeland Security bought two Gulfstream private jets for DHS Secretary Noem and other officials, reports The New York Times. This isn’t the first time taxpayers have paid for Noem’s private costs.

A coordinated MAHA state-level campaign. A report by the Associated Press found that special interest groups associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pushing a wave of anti-science bills in statehouses across the country. At least 420 state-level bills related to vaccines, fluoride in drinking water, and milk safety have been introduced and more than two dozen have been enacted or adopted. Although RFK Jr. often criticizes the moneyed interests behind the pharmaceutical industry, there are lots of businesses and special interests that profit from the anti-science agenda he’s selling.

The United States government keeps killing people on boats. This week, the U.S. struck two vessels in the Pacific, killing five people, according to CBS News and confirmed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. According to the report, the US government has killed at least 37 people in these attacks. The government alleges that these vessels are full of drug smugglers and gang members, which they claim justifies the killings. The wife of Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian man who was killed, said that he had been on a fishing trip. President of Colombia Gustavo Petro said, “This is murder.”

More than 7 million people took to the streets to say No Kings. Last weekend, at more than 2,700 events across the country, people turned out in droves. Political scientists say that it takes just 3.5% of the population engaged in nonviolent protest to create political change and hold back authoritarianism. So, it really is important that millions of people showed up.

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