How Trump Became the Biggest Crook in the History of Democracy

"Donald Trump is not given to regret, but he does get rueful when he thinks about how modest his corruption was in the first term. When he was first elected as president in 2016, Trump was primarily a real estate magnate and television personality who licensed his brand for money. He held on to both his properties and his branding practices in his first term, which meant that business people and foreign governments could indirectly enrich his coffers by staying at Trump-branded hotels."

"It's now clear that, in the grand scheme of things, Trump's first-term corruption was penny-ante, involving tens of millions of dollars rather than billions. It's not that Trump was less greedy; he simply lacked the imagination and connections to realize how the presidency could really be milked on a grand scale. But his four years out of office allowed him to remake his business empire, moving into realms like social media (with Truth Social) and cryptocurrency."

"During these years, the Trump family also deepened its ties to the wealthy elites of Middle Eastern petro-states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These shifts allowed Trump to move from being a relatively small-scale con man to his current position as perhaps the most corrupt elected official in human history. In an interview last month for The New York Times, Trump lamented that he didn't do business deals as president in his first term."

Trump's first-term corruption involved holding onto real estate and branding, allowing business people and foreign governments to enrich his coffers through Trump-branded hotels and granted trademarks, practices that violated the Emoluments Clause. Those early schemes produced tens of millions rather than billions. During four years out of office Trump expanded into social media (Truth Social) and cryptocurrency (World Liberty Financial), with the Trump family owning 75 percent, and deepened ties to wealthy Middle Eastern petro-state elites. Those shifts enlarged the scale, enabling more vast and systemic corruption and positioning Trump as potentially the most corrupt elected official in history.

Read at The Nation