Is anyone keeping track of how much President Donald Trump, his family, his businesses, his acquaintances, and his political supporters have stolen from the taxpayers? I know the Washington Post was doing a “lie tracker” during Trump’s first term–finishing that four years with an astounding 30,573 false or misleading claims–all with supporting data. But I can’t seem to find one place to go to track all of the grift and downright theft that has become the hallmark of the second Trump term.
The tone and the practice started in the first term. Remember when the vast majority of Americans learned about the “Emoluments Clauses”? Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution clearly prohibits any person holding a federal office from accepting gifts, payments, titles, or offices from foreign states or monarchies without explicit consent from Congress. Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution bars the President from receiving any other compensation or financial benefit from the U.S. federal government or any individual state beyond his salary.
You could argue the stealing of tax dollars started from the moment Trump took his first oath of office without ever divesting himself from his myriad business interests. I will grant you that no previous president was involved in so many private-sector interests, but those that did have businesses suspended them or turned them over to others to run while he sat in the Oval Office. But Trump never did that. And he then used his position as President to continue to benefit those businesses.
Take for instance Trump’s insistence that when traveling he and his entire party of cabinet members, advisors, Secret Service detail, and various other staff members stay at Trump-owned and branded hotels. That saw federal tax dollars going directly to the Trump Organization, Inc. So did the White House’s insistence that foreign leaders, diplomats, all of their staff members and security details also stay at Trump-owned and branded hotels when they came to Washington, DC. One of the G-7 economic summits was held at Trump’s Doral Resort in Florida–again, putting money directly into his (and family members’) pockets at a time when the property was losing money on a regular basis.
And when Trump was not directly involved in money-making endeavors, his sons, Eric and Donald, Junior, along with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were jet-setting around the globe to meet with heads of state to discuss Trump-branded developments. Meetings that they likely would not get if their last names were Johnson–and meetings that those heads of state knew would garner favor from the most-powerful man on the planet.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington did try to track Trump’s various Emoluments Clauses violations in his first term, coming up with 27-such instances up to 2020–but they were never able to put a definite price tag on how much policies and actions of the administration benefited Trump’s business operations. CREW even filed lawsuits in New York state and Washington, DC–but the US Supreme Court put the kibosh on those upon appeal.
However much Trump was able to steal from taxpayers, extort from other countries, and collect through business deals that doubled as political favors in his first four years as President are already dwarfed by what he has been able to plunder in just the first 17-months of his second term.
Let’s start with the new $400-million Air Force One “donated” to Trump by the country of Qatar. You’ll note that I said “donated to Trump”, not “donated to the United States of America”–because when (and if) Trump leaves office, he is taking the plane with him. Ostensibly, the 747 will be “property of” the Trump Presidential Library. But it often takes years–and sometime decades–to locate, fund, and build a presidential library. So during that time, Trump will enjoy travel in a fully upgraded jumbo jet–modified at taxpayers’ expense.
Also this term, we have seen no-bid contracts issued for draining, re-lining, and painting of the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, demolition of the East Wing of the White House and proposed construction of a new ballroom–with a price tag that somehow went from $200-million to $1-BILLION in the space of just a couple of months–and the construction of a “triumphal arch” on the National Mall–which will ruin the aforementioned view between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
Last week, Trump traveled to China for a “major summit” with Chairman Xi Jinping. While there was the usual troupe of advisors and translators, right next to the President was also both of his sons, and the CEO’s of companies that either provided Trump with huge amounts of campaign cash in 2024–or that the Trump family has sizeable amounts of shares in.
And let’s not forget about how some people using prediction market websites like Polymarket and Kalshi are cashing in “bigly” on “bets” pertaining to American military actions like killing the leaders of Iran. It just so happens that Donald Trump, Junior is a “strategic advisor” for both Polymarket and Kalshi.
Trump has even managed to steal a public golf course in Washington, DC. East Potomac Golf Links is a municipal course along the banks of the Potomac River in DC that is owned by the National Parks Service. For years, a non-profit entity known as the National Golf Links Trust operated the course–along with two other muni courses in DC–while raising money for a major renovation of East Potomac that was to get underway next year. Since re-taking office, Trump fired everyone on the National Parks Board and replaced them with cronies who have found the NGLT to be in “violation” of their contract by not starting the renovation project and effectively taking the golf course away from them without due process.
Since then, the debris of the East Wing of the White House project has been dumped on the course, and Trump has announced plans to bring in another designer that has worked with him on other golf developments to turn East Potomac into a “championship course” that he thinks will host US Opens and Ryder Cups. Based on previous golf course purchases by the President, it will likely be renamed Trump East Potomac Golf Links.
For the most part, much of this outright theft has gone with little notice and even less public outcry–until this week. The Department of Justice’s announcement that Trump has “authorized” a $1.776-BILLION settlement in his own lawsuit against the DOJ and the IRS over leaks of his past tax returns. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky on this one, as Trump was initially seeking $10-BILLION in the lawsuit–and has instead “settled” on this exact figure in yet another trolling gesture toward his critics.
Trump claims this settlement would go into a fund that he would control–issuing payments to others “wronged by the corrupt Washington swamp”–like the January 6th Capitol rioters. One-thousand-424 of those people were tracked down and criminally charged. So if Trump gave each of those offenders an average of a million dollars, that would still leave him with $352-million to put in his pocket.
This latest attempted cash grab is almost too much for even Trump’s most ardent supporters in Washington. Yesterday, we heard about a closed door meeting where Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal attorney) was berated by Republicans for the better part of two hours about how the settlement was going to look to voters heading into an already difficult mid-term election cycle. GOP leaders were so upset by the move that they adjourned Congress and went home for the next ten days.
I’ve talked more than a few times in this segment about how dangerous precedents are being set by our recent presidents. And we are now on the precipice of having the head of the federal government literally sue himself to agree to a settlement to pay himself. And knowing Trump, he could find plenty of other grievances to “settle” for a huge financial windfall.
And the theft is going to end in January of 2029. As part of the “settlement” with the IRS, Trump not only ended all active tax investigations into himself, his family members, and his businesses, he also exempted himself, his businesses, and his entire family from any future IRS audits and scrutiny of their returns. In effect, Trump has given all those around him free rein to commit tax fraud IN PERPETUITY. All of those in Trump’s orbit could literally file returns claiming to have $1-BILLION refunds, and the IRS would have to pay it, no questions asked.
That “free” 747 I mentioned before, that will not be leaving Washington empty. I can guarantee that all of the gold-plated items and accents added to every room, wall, table, and desk in the White House will be leaving with him to whatever his next destination for him will be. I’m guessing it won’t be New York or even Florida–but more likely a country with no extradition agreement with the United States, as we learn about the depth and breadth of his thievery once he can’t use the levers of government to cover up his activity.
Someday in the 2030’s an intrepid group of reporters will gain access to all of the records that weren’t shredded by the Trump administration on their ways out the door and be able to put together some final total of the grift, embezzlement, and theft. It will be a number that will shock and outrage those of us who have warned everyone we know that a two-bit hustler was being put in charge of the richest country in the history of the planet–and he would take as much of that wealth as he could get away with–while those in the red hats will shrug and say: “Well at least it wasn’t Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris!”
Those same reporters are probably already working on copyrights or trademarks for their book title: The Commander in Thief
