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This week’s edition covers Trump’s latest grand gesture of corruption—gleeful acceptance of a $400 million gift from the Qatari royal family, Donald Jr.’s moves to cash in on his father’s office, various deregulatory actions across the executive branch, and Musk & company’s numerous conflicts of interest.

The PTAB’s inter partes review (IPR) process was designed to swiftly weed out low-quality patents—the kind that stifle competition, inflate consumer prices, and entrench monopolies. But since Trump and Lutnick’s arrival, a quiet bureaucratic coup at the USPTO has undermined this critical safeguard. Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart has moved to centralize power and gut accountability measures, opening the door to a flood of dubious patents.

The gutting of AmeriCorps is yet another callous move made by Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. AmeriCorps is the national service program that sends full-time volunteers to some of the most vulnerable and underserved communities in the country, reaching where other public or private sector services fall short. In cutting $400 million in AmeriCorps grant funding, nearly a third of the program’s already modest $1.3 billion annual budget, DOGE has displaced over 30,000 volunteers and disrupted more than 1,000 programs. These cuts are already triggering ripple effects in communities across the country, from halted disaster recovery projects to abandoned school programs and shuttered food banks.

As the chaos at Newark airport continues, the FAA is losing its leaders to deferred resignation and Secretary Duffy deflects blame. Meanwhile, United CEO works with traditional media to scapegoat Newark’s traumatized workers.

Trump started his second term in the White House by targeting law firms in retaliation for their past legal work and personnel decisions that displeased him. While some firms pushed back against these assaults on their independence, more than a few BigLaw firms caved. Within the first months of the year, they bowed to Trump’s demands, surrendering in order to avoid (potentially illegal) executive orders that could damage their business interests.

The Musk-damaged agency is unlikely to investigate whether Trump and his allies are profiting from advance knowledge about tariff changes or meme coin shenanigans.

Welcome to week sixteen of the Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar, where we highlight examples of corporate corruption shaping the Trump administration’s agenda and their material impact on everyday people. Read our first fifteen issues here and follow us on Bluesky and X for updates.

Surprising no one, Trump’s 2026 budget proposal reads as a nakedly self-interested list of his priorities. It attacks his favorite targets—DEI and climate programs, social services, and non-billionaires—while directing funds to his favorite pet projects: building the border wall, violent mass deportation efforts, privatizing healthcare, enriching defense contractors, and making more and more data available to be mined by tech companies (see the VA section below), including Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley.

RDP Executive Director Jeff Hauser testified about the Trump family’s use of cryptocurrency as a vehicle for blatant corruption

We are tracking the Trump administration’s personnel cuts, reductions in force, and their impacts on food and drug safety. 

Welcome to Week fifteen of the Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar. This week, the Trump family continued to blur the line between politics and business with Trump 2028 merch and a billion dollar deal with Binance and MGX. Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s potential stock sales and a new elite Washington club further expose this convergence. President Trump’s pardons of allies, Elon Musk’s apparent sway over personnel picks, and the rollback of consumer and coal miner protections add to the ethical concerns. Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s timely stock trades and the resignation of “60 Minutes” executive Bill Owens amid pressure from Paramount executives highlight the deepening entanglement of public office, private business, and media, raising alarm growing erosion of norms and the rule of law. 

A longtime Democratic-aligned donor, Bill Ackman publicly backed Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the 2024 election cycle. He stands to gain a lot from the potential privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Tracking the Trump administration’s efforts to disrupt vaccine research, production, or uptake within the public.