‘It's open season for corruption': How Trump turned the White House into a cash cow

The Age

19-05-2025

Donald Trump caught his first sight of the so-called 'palace in the sky' in February as he climbed the red-carpeted steps of the Boeing 747-8.
The Qatari plane, parked at Florida's West Palm Beach International Airport, enabled the US president to see what a newly refitted Air Force One could look like, easing his frustration with a long-delayed Boeing project.
In the event, it appears to have been more of a test drive. His administration's plan to accept the $US400 million ($623 million) luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, which he is expected to use after his presidency, is the latest example of what many view as an increased disregard for ethics in Washington under his second term.
During his first term in the White House, foreign governments buying meals and block-booking rooms at Trump hotels set alarm bells ringing.
Yet now the president has created even more opportunities for those looking to curry favour with him – and his children. From pay-to-dine cryptocurrency schemes, a new social media platform that carries advertising and the expansion of their property empire, it has never seemed easier for the Trump family to line their pockets.
'If I had seen [examples of this behaviour], I would have remembered it, and maybe that just shows they were better at concealing it, because this term, it's just blatant,' says a former member of Trump's first-term cabinet.
'The kids in particular ... this is about making money. You're dealing with royal families, and they understand how families work, and that's the way Trump plays the game. He may not have to say anything himself, they may do it all through the kids.'
In the four months of Trump's second term so far, eldest sons Donald Jr and Eric have travelled the globe flogging their father's name by expanding their property empire. The president's children have also been raking in cash from business deals in the Middle East struck before the president's diplomatic trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates last week.
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'We've never seen anything like this in American history,' says Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics tsar.
Even for Trump's staunchest supporters, accepting a multimillion-dollar luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar – a nation that has in the past acted as key financier for Hamas – is a bitter pill to swallow.
'This is probably the first issue of this administration where a lot of my listeners who get mad at me for criticising Trump actually totally agreed that this is a bad idea,' says conservative radio host Erick Erickson, a long-time voice of the right.
'It's been hard to find Trump supporters who think this is a good idea, except for anonymous accounts on Twitter.'
Laura Loomer, a prominent right-wing activist and a Trump loyalist, wrote on X: 'The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US service members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border.
'This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true. And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump.'
Ben Shapiro, one of the most loyal soldiers in the MAGA cavalry, said on his podcast last week: 'I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right.'
Even as MAGA loyalists are starting to object to Trump greed, close observers say the president is simply deepening practices he honed during his first term in office. A worrying aspect is that there is now little appetite in Congress to rein him in.
'It's open season for corruption in Washington,' says Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew).
Deals in the desert
Nothing encapsulates the conflicts of interests that have blossomed during Trump's second term more than the family's rapid expansion of assets in the Middle East.
A luxury hotel in Dubai, a new golf course and villa complex in Qatar, and a second luxury residential tower in Jeddah are some of the new ventures brokered by the Trump sons in recent weeks, representing deals worth billions of dollars.
A week before Donald Trump flew to the Middle East, Eric was announcing property deals in the region. At a packed convention centre, he unveiled plans for an 80-storey hotel and residential tower.
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'On behalf of myself, on behalf of my family, we love Dubai,' he said. 'We have such a great relationship between the United States and just one of the greatest places and I'm glad to call so many of you friends.'
Qatari developers have helped finance a Trump-branded beachside golf and villa project in the country worth $US5.5 billion. The same company has invested $US1 billion in the Trump International Hotel and Tower project in Dubai. The same company is said to be planning to build other new Trump ventures.
Foreign governments have long taken advantage of the open opportunity to buy access to the president. Trump himself has made at least $US9.6 million from countries in the Middle East during his presidency, according to an analysis of his tax returns by Crew.
'Why wouldn't I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel'?,' a foreign diplomat at the Trump International Hotel in DC told The Washington Post shortly after the president was first elected.
Officials from the Middle East appear to have followed that advice. Saudi government lobbyists are reported to have reserved blocks of rooms at the Washington Trump hotel, spending at least $US270,000 at the property from December 2016 to February 2017.
When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited New York in 2018, several members of his entourage stayed at the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan.
'If you are a foreign country, you can spend millions of dollars a year on lobbyists who are trying to get meetings with low-level officials, or you could write a million-dollar cheque and go directly to the president or his children,' says Libowitz.
'[Ethical norms] have been obliterated, and that can put the country in a scary place. It's clear that we need stronger ethics laws, but right now, Congress does not seem particularly interested in acting on that.'
The family's questionable involvement with the Middle East is long-running. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, began courting Saudi royalty shortly after Trump took power in 2017. Kushner quickly became the principal point of contact for foreign leaders from the region eager to open diplomatic talks with the US president.
Pressured to finalise a massive arms deal in the two weeks leading to Trump's visit that year, Kushner personally called Lockheed Martin chief executive Marillyn Hewson and asked for a discount on sophisticated missile-detection systems.
It worked, and near the end of Trump's first day in the kingdom, the two leaders agreed on one of the biggest deals in history. Kushner would go on to participate in talks on the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
So far, so diplomatic. But Kushner then launched an investment fund, Affinity Partners. Six months after Trump left the White House in January 2021, Affinity received $US2 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
Concerns were raised by a panel overseeing investments, but the wealth fund's board, headed by the Saudi crown prince, intervened and the investment went ahead, according to The New York Times.
Affinity's assets under management jumped 60 per cent last year to $US4.8 billion after it received a cash injection from Middle East investors. It then secured $US1.5 billion of extra capital in 2024 from two of its existing investors, Abu Dhabi-based Lunate and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, Kushner told an investment podcast in December.
He said the increased capital would give the fund 'more firepower' and that it had been closed before Trump was re-elected for a second term.
That injection helped lift its assets under management to $US4.8 billion by the end of 2024, up from $US3 billion the year before, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission under the company name A Fin Management LLC.
The sole owner is Kushner, the filing said.
The crypto president
On Thursday, a cryptocurrency investor known as Ogle will have his second dinner with Donald Trump.
He is one of the 25 crypto buyers who have ploughed so much money into the president's $USTrump meme coin that they have won invites to a private drinks reception with him at his members-only golf club just outside Washington.
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The reception comes before a black-tie optional dinner with the president and the other top 220 holders of $USTrump, who have spent a combined $US148 million on the coin to get an invitation, according to crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital.
Ogle is not a Trump supporter (his grandfather is), yet he spent nearly $US20,000 in 2023 on tokens issued by the then former president to attend a similar dinner under the chandeliers in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago.
'I walked away having to, at the very least, acknowledge that his steak is very good,' says Ogle.
This time around, attendees have to pay far larger sums to get close to him. Ogle bought 421,000 $USTrump tokens to get a place after the competition was announced, worth about $US5.5 million based on the current value of the coin.
During his first term, Trump lambasted cryptocurrencies as 'not money' and 'based on thin air'. Now, according to critics, tokens are the key mechanism through which his children and allies generate money from his presidency.
'He's grabbing cash hand over fist,' says Eisen, who was nicknamed Mr No during the Obama administration for his strict approach to managing potential conflicts of interest.
Corey Frayer, a director of investor protection and formerly senior adviser on crypto to the SEC, says: 'Crypto is clearly the central pillar. The magnitude of this over [Trump's] prior money-making schemes out of the Oval Office just eclipses everything.'
Trump's family are mainly making money through two key ventures.
The first is the meme coin. Creators of these tokens get a portion of the supply, essentially free. The entities behind the $USTrump meme coin – which are linked to Trump – allocated 80 per cent of the coin to themselves.
This is high. 'For general purpose tokens, it's more like a 50 per cent split,' says Ryan Austin, of Inca Digital.
It is also very valuable. As of May 14, the total value of all $USTrump coins was $US2.65 billion.
This portion of insider supply is typically held under a 'lock-up' period, which means the holders cannot sell for a length of time, often a year. Some in the crypto community say a higher allocation to insiders provides more stability, at least during the lock-up period. But it certainly means there is more capacity for the creators to get more money in the long run.
Meanwhile, they get transaction fees. This has so far meant income of more than $US320 million for the entities behind the meme coin, according to Chainalysis. Events such as the Trump dinner competition can spur massive booms in trades.
The Trump family's second crypto venture is World Liberty Financial, which launched last year and lists the president on its website as its 'chief crypto advocate' and his three sons as 'ambassadors'.
The Trump family has a 60 per cent stake in WLF and gets a 75 per cent share of the proceeds from the sales of its $USWLFI digital currency – of which it has sold $US550 million.
As with the meme coin, the Trump family and its affiliates have their own stash of the coin, which the NYT reported at the end of April was worth at least $US1.1 billion.
The White House says Trump has no conflict of interest because his business assets are managed by his children.
Eisen is scathing: 'That is not accurate. He is personally benefiting. He's listed on the website of World Liberty Financial and that cash hits his pockets. He's in constant communication with his family and it's a completely inadequate set of safeguards.'
Erickson, the conservative radio host, says: 'If Republicans were as concerned as they are with Hunter Biden, they should be concerned with the business dealings of Donald Trump's kids. The only major difference I see is that they were already in those industries.'
Trump's children are 'trading on the family name', he says. 'That may be fine for President Trump's supporters, but they would be horrified if the other side did it.'
The family's questionable involvement with the Middle East is long-running.
Cryptocurrency has also become a new way for the Middle East to reach Trump.
In late March, WLF launched a stablecoin – a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a stable value of $US1 – called USD1.
At a Dubai cryptocurrency conference at the start of May, Zach Witkoff, one of WLF's co-founders, sat next to Eric Trump as he announced that an Abu Dhabi-backed fund would be making a $US2 billion investment using his stablecoin. The transaction is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family.
'There was no reason to do that transaction in Trump's stable coin. That $US2 billion arrangement only makes sense as a scheme to influence the president,' says Frayer.
It is not just Trump's family that stands to benefit from the administration's policies on cryptocurrencies but also the children of several of his cabinet members.
Zach Witkoff is the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy.
Brandon Lutnick, son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, launched a partnership with Softbank, Tether and Bitfinex to create the world's largest Bitcoin reserve, at $US3.6 billion. The deal is a gargantuan bid to capitalise on an anticipated cryptocurrency boom.
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The president's involvement in cryptocurrency is particularly problematic because he is also the person who ultimately decides how the sector is policed.
The value of Bitcoin has surged by nearly 50 per cent since Trump won the election in November as investors bet on an easier regulatory environment.
The president has wasted no time in slashing red tape and taking steps to make crypto more mainstream.
In February, the SEC issued a statement that meme coins would not be covered by its oversight. In March, Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile.
Last month, the Department of Justice disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit, which was responsible for investigating crypto crimes.
Trump is also trying to pass the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (Genius) Act, which would pave the way for wider use of stablecoins.
Frayer says there is evidence that Trump is trying to open the door to using stablecoins in the federal payments system, a move that would become an astronomic money-making machine for stablecoin issuers, such as WLF.
'How can you trust a president to regulate an industry like crypto when he personally benefits from lower regulation?' says Eisen. 'It's an unconstitutional and corrupt mess.'
Influence for sale
Extravagant parties that act as pay-to-access opportunities to get close to Donald Trump's inner circle, and even the president himself, have become a theme of his second term.
On the night of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, journalists and staff were bouncing embassy to embassy in search of the best party. But the most exclusive event of the evening was in a hidden location in suburban Washington.
The 'Executive Branch', the brainchild of Donald Trump Jr and mega-donor Omeed Malik, held its first gathering. The invitation-only club, which costs more than $US500,000 to join, was rammed with some of the president's closest allies and even his family members. It is yet another evolution of the Trump family's pattern of monetising access.
Ethics experts view this as dangerous because it institutionalises the idea that influence inside the Trump circles is for sale.
What is undeniable, however, is that it is working for the president. Trump has smashed records for campaign donations, raising an astonishing $US239 million for his 2025 inauguration celebrations, largely fuelled by wealthy individual donors and corporations.
Donors to his inaugural committee included picks for ambassadorships and members of Trump's cabinet.
This pay-to-play landscape works well for the billionaire class, but those on the outside have been left scrambling to find ways to reach the president. The demand for lobbyists has led to a boom in profits for Washington's so-called 'K Street firms', whose revenues swelled in the first three months of 2025.
Unsurprisingly, Trump-connected firms are cashing in on close ties to the president and his inner circle. Continental Strategy, which was started by Carlos Trujillo, a former Florida lawmaker and Trump adviser, brought in more than $US3.6 million in lobbying revenues in the first quarter – up almost tenfold from last year.
For those on the inside, Trump's return to the White House represents a historic money-making opportunity – not least for the president himself and his family.
Such naked profiteering from the highest office of the state is starting to alarm even those at the heart of the MAGA movement.
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'This kind of shady behaviour undermines his agenda and credibility. Even if it's not criminal, it's bad optics,' Shapiro said.
'Trump has real enemies. He doesn't need to create vulnerabilities like this. If these scandals continue, Republicans could lose Congress – and everything President Trump wants to do would be dead on arrival. It needs to stop.'
A White House spokesman said: 'President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.'