Trump Openly Sells Access To Those Who Put The Most Cash In His Pocket
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is taking his efforts to use his office for personal enrichment — the very definition of corruption — to new levels Thursday night, selling face time to those who put money into his bank account by purchasing nearly $200 million worth of his branded souvenir crypto coins.
And while Trump will know who has parted with all that cash for the opportunity to spend a few hours to bend his ear, Americans will not — unless they can somehow match real names to monikers like 'MeCo,' 'CASE, 'GAnt' and 'REKT.'
Those four individuals or organizations, identified only by their usernames and crypto 'wallet' addresses, collectively owned 2.7 million $TRUMP coins, worth a total of $38.3 million on Wednesday, based on the $14 price per coin that day.
Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College historian, said Trump's open corruption is unprecedented in American history. 'Interestingly, the real financial corruption in an administration is around the president, not usually the president himself,' she said.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the crypto coin business 'has nothing to do with the White House.'
Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary, denied Trump was doing anything wrong and instead attacked the news media for correctly reporting on his two federal prosecutions, his criminal conviction for falsifying business records and the civil judgment against his company for massive fraud. 'President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public, which is why they overwhelmingly reelected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,' she said.
Trump began selling his new tokens three days before his inauguration. The coin, which has zero intrinsic value, soared in price to as high as $75, allowing 58 early buyers to make over $10 million each before the coins plummeted in value. They were selling for about $8 each before Trump announced his contest in late April to award a 'gala' dinner at his golf resort in Sterling, Virginia, to the top 220 Trump coin purchasers, based on how much they held on average from Jan. 17 through May 15. The top 25 coin holders would also be invited to a 'VIP' reception with Trump before the dinner and then a tour the following day. The contest website originally had promised a White House tour, but subsequently changed the page to delete the White House reference.
According to a 'leaderboard' maintained by GetTrumpMemes.com, the company that is managing the coin sales, the 220 winning coin holders in total owned 13.8 million coins on the May 15 close of the contest, worth just over $192 million.
Just over $20 million of that total was held by the single biggest Trump coin holder, Chinese-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who is among the few of the contest winners whose identities are known because they have boasted about it publicly.
'Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump's Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!' Sun wrote in a social media post Wednesday. 'As the top holder of $TRUMP, I'm excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry.'
Sun last year bought $75 million of crypto coins issued by a different Trump family business, World Liberty Financial. Not long after Trump retook the White House, the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal court to pause its two-year-old civil fraud suit against Sun and his businesses.
It is unknown and, from the public record, unknowable what other coin buyers want out of their meeting with Trump. One publicly traded trucking logistics company revealed in an SEC filing that it planned to buy as much as $20 million in Trump coin 'to advocate for fair, balanced and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.'
The company, Freight Technologies, however, said through a spokesperson that it is not attending the dinner.
The Trump meme coin is just one piece of Trump's open attempts to use his presidency for his personal gain. While he did the same in his first term through his hotels and golf resorts, he has focused this time around on his various crypto ventures. Indeed, his World Liberty Financial brokerage announced just before Trump's recent trip to the Middle East that a state-backed firm in the United Arab Emirates was using its 'stable' coin for a $2 billion transaction.
How much, precisely, Trump is earning through these various schemes may never be known, because — unlike every other president in recent times — he has refused to release his tax returns to the public.
A recent Washington Post analysis found that Trump and his partners in the Trump coin business made $3 million in transaction fees since the contest was announced in April, and $43 million in fees and $312 million in coin sales since Jan. 17 — all despite the Constitution's prohibition against presidents accepting income other than their salary.
Trump's lack of interest in abiding by constitutional rules on outside income and gifts, in fact, appears to have become an international joke.
On Wednesday, Trump angrily defended his decision to accept a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar, attacking a reporter who asked about it during an Oval Office photo opportunity with South Africa's president.
Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to the White House to win a trade agreement, told Trump: 'I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you.'
Trump responded: 'I wish you did. I would take it.'
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