"By contrast, his second term looks rapacious. He and members of his family have signed a blitz of foreign mega-deals shadowed by conflicts of interest, and they've launched at least five different cryptocurrency enterprises, all of which leverage Trump's status as President to lure buyers or investors. Ethics watchdogs say that no other President has ever so nakedly exploited his position, or on such a scale. Trump recently explained to the Times why he cast aside his former restraint: "I found out that nobody cared.""
"My method was conservative. It seemed unfair to begrudge Trump the profits from the many businesses he owned before entering the White House. So I excluded from my calculation preëxisting hotels, condos, and golf courses, along with plausible extensions of those long-standing businesses. Likewise, Trump is hardly the first President to trade access or potential influence for political fund-raising, and he generally cannot spend such money on personal expenses, so I set that aside, too."
Donald Trump's second term has produced extensive personal and family commercial activity that leverages presidential power. Promises to avoid anything perceived as exploitative were supplanted by a pattern of foreign mega-deals, conflicts of interest, and at least five cryptocurrency enterprises marketed using presidential status. Ethics groups characterize the scale as unprecedented. Trump justified the shift by saying, "I found out that nobody cared." A conservative accounting excluded preexisting properties, political fundraising proceeds, and illiquid assets such as Truth Social shares; even with those exclusions, profiteering related to the presidency reached $3.4 billion by August, and the First Family continued to expand commercial activities thereafter.
Read at The New Yorker
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