Trump's 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Marks a Pattern of Trying To Profit From the Presidency

Trump's 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Marks a Pattern of Trying To Profit From the Presidency Since the beginning of his first term, the president has repeatedly used his office for personal gain. "I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself," President Donald Trump told reporters a few days after he sued the IRS. He wasn't kidding: His January 29 lawsuit, which alleged damages caused by an IRS contractor's illegal leaking of Trump's tax returns, pitted him against an agency he oversees, represented by Justice Department lawyers who also answer to him. The result of Trump's admitted self-dealing was not pretty. The "settlement" that the president reached with himself, which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on May 18, included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for purported victims of the Biden administration's "lawfare and weaponization." It also included protection from liability for tax violations and any other federal offenses that Trump or his family might have committed. Neither of those provisions had anything to do with Trump's claims against the IRS, which in any case were legally barred because he missed the statutory deadline for filing his lawsuit. But Trump, who prides himself on being a tough negotiator, has a soft spot for himself. Trump's "Anti-Weaponization Fund," which was designed to reward his political allies, provoked a fierce bipartisan backlash that persuaded Blanche to abandon the scheme two weeks after announcing it. The sweeping immunity deal got less attention, and Blanche says it remains in place. Judging from just one IRS dispute involving Trump's claims of business losses, that dispensation could save him more than $100 million in taxes, interest, and penalties. Under the pretext of a bogus lawsuit, Trump obtained favors for himself, his family, and his supporters, approved by underlings eager to please their boss. And that jaw-dropping scam is just one example of the many ways Trump has used his office for personal gain. He has shown a complete disregard for the appearance of impropriety, conflicts of interest, the ethical implications of self-dealing, and even the rule of law. His corruption is so flagrant and multifaceted that previous presidential scandals in this category pale by comparison. The IRS Settlement Gave Trump Immunity From Federal Tax Claims The May 18 "settlement agreement," which was signed by IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr., and Trump's personal lawyers, described the Anti-Weaponization Fund as a response to abuses of "government power" by "Democrat" officials. It complained that "the Biden Administration" had "target[ed]" people for "improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons." Although Trump himself would not have been eligible for compensation, he counts himself among those victims. The agreement noted that he had filed "two claims for relief pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act" based on the federal investigations of his 2016 campaign's alleged ties to Russia and his handling of classified documents that he took with him when he left office in January 2021. Trump sought financial compensation from the Justice Department for "the Russia-collusion hoax" and "the unlawful raid of Mar-a-Lago." Those claims were "pending at the administrative level," meaning that officials serving at the president's pleasure were deciding how much taxpayer money he should get to make up for his ordeals. Their boss thought $230 million was about right, but he magnanimously dropped his claims in exchange for a much bigger payout: $1.8 billion in rewards for his friends and followers. According to the agreement, the five members of the board charged with doling out that money would be appointed by Blanche and could be dismissed by Trump at any time for any reason. The board would not be required to publicly disclose its procedures or decisions, and it would stop accepting claims a month and a half before the inauguration of the next president. Trump made it clear who the intended beneficiaries were. "I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!" he explained four days after the "settlement" was announced. Those "others" presumably included the 1,600 or so Trump supporters charged with participating in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, since Trump had already pardoned them and had frequently portrayed them as victims of government persecution. Trump confirmed that impression in a Meet the Press interview a few weeks later. "People have been hurt so badly by radical-left lunatics that worked for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe," he said. The rioters "were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization," he added, and "many of those people should be compensated." Including rioters who had been convicted of assaulting police officers? Trump did not rule it out, even though that prospect had dismayed the Republican legislators who objected to the Anti-Weaponization Fund. By that point, Blanche had declared that "we're not moving forward with the fund, period." But he said the "separate attorney general order" that he issued on May 19 was unaffected by that change of heart. Blanche's order, which he presented as an addendum to the "settlement agreement," barred the IRS from pursuing claims against Trump or his family based on their past tax returns. The protection went beyond the IRS. The addendum said "the United States" is "FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED" from pursuing "any and all claims" against Trump or his family regarding "any matters currently pending or that could be pending" before the IRS, the Treasury Department, or "other agencies or departments." DOJ's Handling of the IRS Case Reflects Clear Conflicts of Interest The immunity deal resembles a preemptive self-pardon, except that it extends further, encompassing civil violations as well as criminal offenses. No president has ever attempted to pardon himself, and it is not clear whether such an act of clemency would be legal. It would certainly generate a vociferous political response, since it would create the appearance that the president is above the law and contradict the principle that no one should be a judge in his own case. Blanche's order, which shields Trump and his family from the penalties that ordinary Americans face when they run afoul of federal law, is outrageous for the same reasons. Neither the immunity deal nor the promise of payouts to Trump's allies was logically related to his complaint that the IRS had failed to properly supervise contractors entrusted with confidential tax information. And Trump obtained those huge favors even though his lawsuit was fatally flawed. Trump preposterously claimed the disclosure of his tax returns had caused "at least" $10 billion in damages. In addition to offering that improbable estimate of the injury he had suffered, he filed the lawsuit more than two years after learning about the leak, exceeding the time limit set by the statute he invoked. That law covers unauthorized disclosures by "any officer or employee of the United States." So even if Trump had filed his lawsuit on time, he would have faced the challenge of arguing that a contractor employed by a consulting business fit into that category—a point that the Justice Department has disputed in other cases involving similar claims. Despite those legal weaknesses, the Justice Department never bothered to contest Trump's claims, in sharp contrast with the way it usually treats such lawsuits. That failure highlighted the conflicts of interest created by a case in which both sides were represented by lawyers who worked for Trump. Further compromising the Justice Department's ability to defend the IRS, an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025 bars the government's lawyers from taking legal positions at odds with the president's. The situation was so bizarre that Kathleen Williams, the federal judge overseeing the case in the Southern District of Florida, questioned whether it involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. Trump dropped his case two days before the deadline for briefing on that issue, so Williams never resolved it. Nor did she have a chance to review the settlement. But on May 29, Williams ordered Trump's lawyers to address "grievous allegations" about that cozy arrangement, including "charges of collusion" and "the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties." Williams was mulling "whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the 'victim of a fraud.'" In a June 12 response to that inquiry, Trump's lawyers insisted that the Justice Department had reached "a fully proper government settlement" after weighing the merits of their client's claims and assessing the cost of defending against them. They conceded that "no Defendant ever filed an answer, a motion for summary judgment, or any other responsive pleading" at "any point in this case." But they said "the absence of filed appearances" and the government's "decision not to assert defenses that were available in parallel litigation" did not count as evidence of collusion. Responding to that brief a week later, 35 retired federal judges, including former 4th Circuit Judge Michael Luttig and several other Republican appointees, said it "only underscores the need to investigate whether the parties have perpetrated a fraud on this Court and corrupted the integrity of the judicial process." The suggestion that the Justice Department thought opposing the lawsuit would cost more than settling it, Luttig et al. noted, was "laughable given the facts of this case: a settlement worth nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds plus a capacious and extraordinary general release that purports to forfeit claims for substantial sums in unpaid taxes and other potential damages and fines." Such "monumental relief," they noted, "dwarfs any conceivable 'cost of defense.'" Blanche "did not want the Justice Department to go into court and fight the suit, as it normally would, but also did not want to settle it by paying Mr. Trump directly," The New York Times reported in May. According to the newspaper's unnamed sources, Blanche thought "ending the case by funneling taxpayer money straight to the president" would be "politically untenable." Blanche evidently perceived an important distinction between handing Trump $100 million and saving him the same amount (or more) by protecting him from IRS claims. But the upshot is the same. In any event, Trump himself clearly does not feel constrained by such concerns. Foreign Governments Curried Presidential Favor at Trump's Hotel According to a recent YouGov survey, 59 percent of Americans think Trump "is using his office for personal gain." That poll was mostly conducted before the Anti-Weaponization Fund was announced, and it was completed before Blanche revealed Trump's immunity deal. The public's impression nevertheless was well-grounded in Trump's prior record. Two weeks before Election Day in 2016, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., had its grand opening. The luxury hotel, which occupied the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue, less than a mile from the White House, was open for business throughout Trump's first term, charging $500 to $900 a night for standard rooms and upward of $1,000 for suites. The hotel's customers included Republican political organizations and a long list of trade groups, such as the National Mining Association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the National Confectioners Association, and the Vapor Technology Association, whose interests might be served by currying favor with the president. The Trump International Hotel also took money from the governments of foreign countries, such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, and Romania, that likewise may have been investing in Trump's goodwill. That situation extended to other Trump properties, and it provoked several lawsuits based on the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause, which says federal officials may not receive "any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind" from a "foreign state" without congressional approval. Those cases, which ultimately fizzled after Trump left office, hinged largely on the meaning of "emolument." Trump argued that the term should be read narrowly, encompassing benefits received in exchange for official acts but not market transactions that happen to enrich the president. The plaintiffs argued that any "profit, gain, advantage, or benefit" received from a foreign government counted as an "emolument." Regardless of how you define emolument, the potential for conflicts of interest was clear. Trump "has a financial interest in vast business holdings around the world that engage in dealings with foreign governments and receive benefits from those governments," one lawsuit noted. In addition to hotel and golf resort revenue, those benefits included rent from tenants of Trump Tower in Manhattan, licensing fees for The Apprentice, trademarks granted by the Chinese government, and regulatory approval of Trump projects around the world. But Trump's hotel in Washington was the most conspicuous illustration of the ethical issues raised by his business interests. "Believe me, all the delegations will go there," a "Middle Eastern diplomat" told The Washington Post after Trump's election. "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!'" an "Asian diplomat" said. "Isn't it rude to come to his city and say, 'I am staying at your competitor'?" The Embassy of Kuwait, which had previously held its annual National Day celebration at the Four Seasons, reportedly canceled its reservation there and switched to the president-elect's hotel under pressure from the Trump Organization. Trump saw no problem with any of this. "The law is totally on my side," he told The New York Times in November 2016. "The president can't have a conflict of interest." He reiterated that take at a press conference nine days before his inauguration. "I have a no-conflict situation because I'm president," he said. "I have a no-conflict-of-interest provision as president." Trump presumably meant that no law required him to sell his assets or eschew profits from his businesses while he was president. If we leave aside the question of constitutional constraints, he was right about that: The federal statute governing official acts "affecting a personal financial interest" exempts the president and the vice president. But ethical requirements go beyond the letter of the law, which is why Trump's recent predecessors had taken steps to separate their official duties from their financial interests. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush placed their assets in blind trusts while they served in the Oval Office. Barack Obama opted for "a mix of bank accounts, treasury notes, index funds and college savings" that "was unlikely to pose a direct conflict of interest," Forbes reports. Even Richard Nixon, hardly known for his ethical rectitude, bragged about selling all his stocks before entering the White House. Joe Biden took a similar approach. Even as Trump insisted that he could not possibly have a conflict of interest, he contradicted himself by making a show of transferring the Trump Organization's operational control to his sons. "They're going to be running it in a very professional manner," he said. "They're not going to discuss it with me." Trump also promised that the Trump Organization would avoid new foreign deals during his term, and he said he would donate the profits from money spent by foreign governments at his hotels to the U.S. Treasury. Walter Shaub, director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, described those moves as "meaningless." The problem was that "the president of the United States is also the ultimate owner of a worldwide business enterprise," Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said. "There is such an entanglement between the president and these businesses that in my view it's going to be completely unmanageable. He doesn't solve this problem by saying his sons are going to manage the business." Even when it came to hotel revenue, Trump's solution fell short. It did not address the money he was taking in from various domestic interest groups or his ability to enrich himself by encouraging Republican organizations or other federal officials to patronize his businesses. One example of the latter: Vice President Mike Pence and his party stayed at Trump's golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, during an official trip in 2019. Although Trump insisted he "had nothing to do" with that decision, critics perceived a violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause, which says the president may not receive additional compensation from the federal government beyond his official salary. Trump also invited criticism by declining to disclose his tax returns, as every president since Nixon had done. Trump's determination to keep that information under wraps not only made it harder to track potential conflicts of interest, but it also provided the excuse for his brazenly corrupt "settlement" with the IRS. Trump Uses His Status To Sell Bibles, Sneakers, Phones, and More The main lesson Trump drew from those first-term controversies was not that he should do more to address concerns about conflicts of interest. To the contrary, he concluded that any gestures in that direction were not worth the cost to his bottom line. Twelve days before his second inauguration, Trump said he regretted the constraints he had placed on his family's international deals during his first term. "I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it," he told The New York Times. "I didn't have to do that. And it's really unfair to them….I found out that nobody cared, and I'm allowed to." The conviction that "nobody cared" seems to be driving Trump's business ventures during his second term, which include many attempts to capitalize on his status as president. Trump, whose business model depends largely on licensing his brand, has a long history of attaching his name to things, including Trump Tower, the Trump National Golf Club, the Trump Taj Mahal casino, Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, and Trump: The Game. Last December, he followed that pattern by adding his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A federal judge nixed that revision in May, saying Congress had clearly established the center's name and only Congress could change it. Another Trump vanity project, the huge White House ballroom he wants to erect on the site of the demolished East Wing, also ran into a judicial roadblock. In March, a federal judge said the project cannot proceed without congressional approval because "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have." The president is "the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families," wrote U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush nominee. "He is not, however, the owner!" Most of Trump's exercises in shameless self-promotion have been less clearly illegal. They are nevertheless unprecedented attempts to generate income based on his official position, and they create opportunities for favor seekers eager to ingratiate themselves with Trump by spending money on his presidential products. You can buy Trump's "God Bless the USA" Bibles for $60 each or, for just $40 more, invest in a "Presidential Edition" embossed with Trump's official seal. The other $100 options include a "First Lady Edition," a "Vice Presidential Edition," a "Golden Age Edition," an "Inauguration Day Edition," and a "Veteran Edition." The "Signature Edition," which bears the president's autograph, will set you back $1,000, but that's only $90.26 a month if you opt for the 12-month payment plan at 15 percent interest. And if you buy two or more Bibles, Trump will throw in a "singing gift bag" that plays the Lee Greenwood song to which the brand's name alludes. In addition to ordinary MAGA enthusiasts, Trump's Bibles appealed to Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, who wanted to buy 55,000 of them for classroom use. Walters' department, which had set aside $3 million for the purchase, was specifically interested in Bibles featuring the King James text, leather or leather-like binding, and copies of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Pledge of Allegiance—criteria that happened to uniquely qualify Trump's product. Walters thought better of the plan after it provoked widespread criticism. God Bless the USA also hawks Trump guitars for $1,500 and Trump jukeboxes for $2,500. Cheaper items include a Donald Trump Record Player decorated with his signature and the presidential seal ($150), MAGA T-shirts and hats ($30), and a Trump squeeze toy ($30), which "Thousands of Patriots Love." Wait, there's more: Trump Sneakers sells "Official President Donald Trump Footwear," including Never Surrender low tops ($199), Trump Fight for America boots ($299), and the Trump Presidential Golf Shoes ($499). A bottle of Victory 47 cologne, topped by a golden Trump idol, goes for $249. Ordinary Trump Watches cost $499, and you can preorder a "special edition" celebrating the man along with the nation's 250th anniversary for $899. Trump Mobile, a phone service launched in June 2025, charges $47.45 a month without a contract and offers customers golden Trump phones for just $100. Trump-branded Bibles, guitars, watches, footwear, fragrances, and NFTs earned him about $8 million in 2024. Last year, he received $4.7 million in licensing fees for Trump watches, plus another $3.3 million from various other products and publishing deals, including his Save America coffee table book. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) noted that the online Trump Store "launched at least 168 new products" from Election Day through Inauguration Day, which was "168 more items" than any previous president-elect had offered for sale. As of April 2026, CREW later reported, the Trump Store had introduced "at least 622 products" since the beginning of the president's second term. Although "it's not normal for a president to profit off of the presidency," CREW says, "Trump has done so blatantly before and even more unabashedly this time." Trump Sells Access to Buyers of His Meme Coin Those Trump Store products do not include the $TRUMP meme coin, a cryptocurrency that Trump launched three days before beginning his second term. The coin's price immediately quadrupled, and its market capitalization hit a peak of $15 billion on the Sunday morning before Trump's inauguration. At that point, Axios noted, about 200 million of 1 billion coins had been sold, and the rest were still owned by "Trump-controlled entities," meaning "Trump's crypto holdings were worth as much as $58 billion on paper." Pretty flimsy paper, it turned out. The price of the meme coin fell from $27.38 on Inauguration Day to $1.65 as of July 6, 2026. Still, the Financial Times reported that the initial $TRUMP sale had generated "at least $350 million" in revenue, and Trump continued to earn fees on subsequent trades. According to his latest financial disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics, revenue from the meme coin totaled $636 million in 2025. The long slide of Trump's meme coin was interrupted in April 2025, when the top 220 $TRUMP holders were invited to "an intimate private dinner" with the president on May 22. The "top 25 coin holders" were promised "an Exclusive Reception before Dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT," plus a "Special VIP Tour" of the White House the next day. The coin's price rose by more than 50 percent immediately after that announcement. "Since the announcement, crypto investors around the world have raced to expand their holdings of $TRUMP," The New York Times reported 10 days before the dinner. "Certain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy." In response to complaints that Trump was openly selling access to him, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said he was "abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws"—i.e., the laws Trump had repeatedly emphasized do not apply to him. "I can assure you the president acts with only the interests of the American public in mind, putting our country first and doing what's best for our country, full stop," she added. NBC reported that the coin investors who attended the dinner, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, had collectively spent $394 million on $TRUMP. On average, that worked out to about $1.8 million a plate. "This is my president that we're talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause," Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R–Wyo.) said a few weeks before the dinner. "In abstract," Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) allowed, the event "is hard to understand." Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) drew an analogy: "I don't think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour." Donald Sherman, CREW's executive director, was blunter. "This is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I've ever seen," he said. Trump Invests in Cryptocurrency While Overseeing Its Regulation The sale of access is by no means the only way Trump's cryptocurrency ventures, which include investments via family companies as well as the $TRUMP offering, are ethically problematic. Trump is earning money from the industry even as he plays a leading role in setting the policies governing it. "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money," Trump tweeted during his first term, saying their value "is highly volatile and based on thin air." In a 2021 Fox Business interview, he said cryptocurrency "seems like a scam." But he had become an unabashed enthusiast by the time he ran for president in 2024, when his campaign attracted $22 million in support from the cryptocurrency industry. Trump appointed crypto-friendly officials, including Paul Atkins as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and David Sacks as the White House "AI and crypto czar." The SEC under Atkins later dropped a bunch of crypto-related cases, and the Justice Department disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. Six days after launching $TRUMP, the president issued an executive order aimed at "strengthening American leadership in digital financial technology." The goal, the White House explained, was to "establish regulatory clarity for digital financial technology and secure America's position as the world's leader in the digital asset economy, driving innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans." Through sensible regulation, Trump promised, the United States would become the "crypto capital of the planet." The following month, the SEC announced that meme coins like $TRUMP would no longer be subject to its regulation. In July 2025, Trump signed the GENIUS Act, which likewise made asset-backed "stablecoins" such as Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC exempt from regulation as "securities" or "commodities." Trump did that four months after World Liberty Financial, one of his family's cryptocurrency businesses, introduced its own stablecoin, USD1. Last October, Trump pardoned billionaire crypto tycoon Changpeng Zhao, who had served four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to money laundering offenses. The New York Times noted that Zhao's firm, Binance, had recently agreed to a business deal that promised to "generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president's top Middle East adviser." That deal also involved MGX Fund Management, an investment firm owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Leavitt portrayed the pardon as a repudiation of the Biden administration's crypto policies. "President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency," she said. "The Biden Administration's war on crypto is over." Whatever your take on the inherent merits of these moves, Trump's financial interests in the industry clearly gave him a personal stake in the decisions he made. In June 2026, Reuters reported that "the Trump family has made $2.3 billion" from four cryptocurrency ventures: the meme coin, World Liberty Financial, AI Financial Corp., and American Bitcoin. In 2025, according to Trump's disclosure, he earned about $1.4 billion from his family's cryptocurrency businesses. That accounted for the lion's share of his income that year, which totaled at least $2.2 billion, up from at least $622 million in 2024. Trump's Stock Buys Contradict His Support for Banning Trades by Legislators Trump intermittently acknowledges that policymakers should not personally profit from their decisions. In April 2025, he said he would "absolutely" sign a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. He reiterated his support for such legislation during his 2026 State of the Union address, saying it was necessary to "ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information." But as is often the case, Trump does not feel obliged to follow the rules he thinks should apply to other people. Trump "went on a stock-buying spree in early 2026," NOTUS reported in May. According to Trump's official financial disclosure, he bought $1 million to $5 million in Nvidia stock on February 10, "only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta." Trump had previously bought $500,000 to $1 million in Nvidia stock on January 6, "a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China." Trump also bought stock in government contractors such as Palantir Technologies, Axon, Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, and Alphabet. KFF Health News noted another eyebrow-raising purchase: Trump "bought as much as $680,000" in Eli Lilly stock. The transactions coincided with "several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker's GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare" when "they are prescribed for weight loss." Leavitt insisted there was nothing inappropriate or suspicious about the president's stock purchases. "President Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children," she told NOTUS "There are no conflicts of interest." Since fathers do sometimes talk to their children, that defense seemed less than ironclad. It is doubtful that Trump would accept similar assurances from legislators, who he thinks should not be allowed to buy stocks at all. When Trump endorsed that policy during his State of the Union speech, Rep. Mark Takano (D–Calif.) offered a suggestion: "How about you first?" The stock purchases are not the only Trump investments that have raised ethical questions. A shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump recently merged with Cove Kaz Capital, which has a 70 percent stake in a Kazakh tungsten mining operation that last year received $1.6 billion in funding from the U.S. government. The month before the merger, the Financial Times reports, Cove Kaz Capital sought an additional $400 million from the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital. Last November, the Office of Strategic Capital announced a $620 million loan to Vulcan Elements, a manufacturer of rare earth magnets partly owned by Donald Trump Jr.'s venture capital firm. The Pentagon and Donald Jr. said he played no role in that agreement. But in May, ProPublica reported that presidential adviser Peter Navarro, a friend of Donald Jr.'s, had greased the skids for the deal. According to an unnamed Defense Department source, "The call came from the White House: We have to get this done." The Pentagon also figures in the business plans of two drone manufacturers tied to the president's sons. In April, the U.S. Air Force agreed to buy interceptor drones from Powerus, a company in which Donald Jr. and Eric had acquired a stake the previous month. Donald Jr. also has invested in Unusual Machines, which lists him as a member of its advisory board. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Unusual Machines was negotiating a possible funding deal with the Defense Department. After that news broke, Bloomberg noted, the company's stock price rose by 57 percent, reaching "an all-time high." During a CNBC interview on July 2, Trump conceded that his sons "have inside information" regarding "almost anything they do." Although "I tell my kids, 'Stay away from as much as you can stay away from,'" he said, "they also have a life." Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, is also cashing in. Last March, The New York Times reported that Kushner, "one of the U.S. government's chief negotiators in the Middle East," was trying to raise "$5 billion or more for Affinity Partners, his investment firm." The potential investors included "Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which invests the proceeds of the kingdom's vast oil reserves" and is headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner had previously received a $2 billion investment from the fund, which its board approved in July 2021, six months after he left his position as a presidential adviser during Trump's first term. That was not the only Kushner deal involving Middle Eastern investors. In April, the Times reported that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, had approached Syrian billionaires Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat about investing in "a multibillion-dollar resort in Albania." At the time, the Al-Khayyat brothers were lobbying the U.S. government to lift economic sanctions against Syria that were imposed before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime. Trump removed those sanctions in June 2025. The president, who during his first term thought a moratorium on his family's foreign business ventures was appropriate, or at least politically advisable, now says he sees no reason for such restraint. Last year, for instance, Trump earned $14 million in licensing fees by lending his name to properties in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Shortly before Trump's second inauguration, an investment firm backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security adviser to the UAE government, secretly agreed to pay $500 million for a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial. "At the same time that the crypto deal came together," The New York Times reported, "the Emirati government secured an agreement with the Trump administration for the export of hundreds of thousands of advanced chips to power A.I. technology." Trump has not been shy about accepting favors that look like attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy. In May 2025, the government of Qatar offered to let him use a luxury 747 worth about $400 million as a replacement for Air Force One. Trump saw no reason to pass up that gift. "I could be a stupid person and say, 'No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane,'" Trump told reporters. "I thought it was a great gesture." About a year later, the State Department approved $5 billion in arms sales to Qatar. Around the same time, the U.S. Air Force said Trump's new plane, described as a "palace in the sky," had been modified to accommodate the president and would be ready to fly this summer. Trump's Vendettas Deliver Quantifiable Personal Benefits Sometimes the personal benefits that Trump has obtained thanks to his official position are less tangible than a flying palace. When Trump perverts the criminal justice system to punish his enemies, as with his attempts to imprison Democratic legislators and former FBI Director James Comey for saying things he did not like, the payoff is whatever pain he manages to inflict. But in other cases, Trump's pursuit of his vendettas has reaped quantifiable rewards. Beginning in February 2025, Trump issued a series of executive orders aimed at punishing law firms for representing clients or causes he despises. He suspended the security clearances of lawyers at those firms, barred them from federal contracts and government buildings, and suggested that anyone doing business with them might also suffer reprisals. Those penalties posed an existential threat to the firms. Some of Trump's targets responded by fighting him in court, successfully arguing that his retaliation for constitutionally protected conduct violated the First Amendment. But nine major firms folded, granting concessions in exchange for presidential mercy. Those concessions included promises of pro bono legal services valued at nearly $1 billion, to be used on behalf of Trump-favored policies, causes, and clients. That coerced legal work reportedly has included helping the Justice Department with immigration cases, assisting the Commerce Department in trade negotiations, and representing police officers accused of misconduct. Last year, The New York Times reported that "White House officials" thought "some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations." In December, the watchdog group American Oversight sued the Justice Department and the Commerce Department under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking records that might further illuminate how the dragooned lawyers have been deployed. We also have a dollar figure for the benefit that Trump obtained last year after suing CBS over a pre-election 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris: $16 million in legal expenses and funding for Trump's presidential library. That was just 0.08 percent of the $20 billion in damages that Trump claimed CBS had inflicted by editing the Harris interview in a way that made her seem slightly more cogent. But it was $16 million more than he should have received. By Settling Trump's Laughable Lawsuit Against CBS, Paramount Strikes a Blow at Freedom of the Press Trump's lawsuit, which alleged violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the federal Lanham Act, was patently preposterous. After he filed the original complaint in October 2024, CBS accurately noted that it was "completely without merit" and vowed to "vigorously defend against it." But Paramount, which owned CBS, decided to settle eight months later, apparently because its executives were anxious to avoid retaliation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Before the 2024 election, Trump said the FCC should punish CBS for the Harris interview by yanking its broadcast licenses. After Trump appointed Brendan Carr as FCC chairman, the agency became a willing tool of the president's vengeance. Among other things, it reopened an absurd "news distortion" investigation of CBS based on its allegedly deceptive editing of the Harris interview. And when Paramount agreed to settle Trump's lawsuit, the FCC was deciding whether to allow the company's merger with Skydance Media, which it finally approved a few weeks later. Paramount's payout to Trump was small change compared to the original terms of Trump's "settlement agreement" with the IRS and the Justice Department, which involved more than 100 times as much money. Even without the Anti-Weaponization Fund, the immunity deal could be worth much more than Trump got from Paramount, and it directly benefits him, as opposed to a Trump-glorifying library. Both lawsuits were fundamentally phony. But the resolution of the CBS case at least involved an actual agreement between adverse parties, although one of them was acting under intense government pressure. And Paramount used its own money, while the Justice Department was playing with funds forcibly extracted from taxpayers who had no say in the matter. It is not hard to see why the Cato Institute's Walter Olson has suggested that the IRS "settlement" may be "the most corrupt act ever taken by an American president." Maybe the attention it has attracted will renew interest in the long train of unethical conduct that preceded it.