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It’s week eleven of the Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar, where we highlight the latest slate of corporate corruption that’s shaping the Trump Administration, its agenda, and the material impacts of that corruption on real people. Our first ten issues can be found here, and follow us on Bluesky and X for more updates on this work.

This week has been defined by yet more chaos, as the gaggle of incompetent buffoons that seemingly make up the policy infrastructure of this administration continue to play at political theater while doing all that they can to ruin the rest of our lives. From crashing the global economy to giving corporations free license to do whatever they want, they’re succeeding.

While national security adviser Michael Waltz’s Signal chat security breach debacle has dominated headlines this week, it’s not the only act of reckless disregard for the safety and security of Americans in the news. This week also saw projections that Trump-Musk cuts to the IRS could lead to a $500 billion tax revenue shortfall this year, with a slump already in effect at this point in tax season.

Among many instances of blatant corruption, this week saw huge gains for Trump’s crypto firm and huge losses for the EPA’s scientific research arm.

“We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think.” 

These were the words of Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan after the Trump administration violated multiple court orders and deported people without due process. Are we in a constitutional crisis yet? (Yes, and this is not the first time Trump officials have refused to obey the courts; we are tracking these violations here.)

While the lion’s share of this weeks’ news cycle surrounds a potential partial government shutdown (readers of this newsletter know that the government already is substantially shut down by DOGE), Trump and his lackeys continue churning the corruption machine for their own benefit. Trump, Musk, and their underlings shamelessly use the government to get even richer while decimating the government’s capacity to help poor people, farmers, students, women, and well, all of us.

Even on the brink of a shutdown, the GOP remains committed to shutting down the federal government.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth right now about whether Congressional Democrats should, effectively, negotiate with terrorists. It goes like this: Congress has until March 14 to pass a bill funding the government to avoid a government shutdown. Republicans need some Democrats to vote in favor of the bill in order to get it past the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Democrats don’t want to see millions of federal workers furloughed. But supporting the Republicans’ bill amounts to agreeing that business as usual can continue despite the coup; despite the illegal shutdown of agencies and unconstitutional impoundment of appropriated money and the flaunting of court orders. Despite, in other words, the five-alarm-fire that is our political reality.

This week, the Trump administration is moving fast to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), abandoning several active enforcement cases against financiers ripping off consumers. The SEC paused its case against Trump ally Justin Sun and handed the crypto industry another victory. Elon Musk continues to have field day after field day, slashing agencies he doesn’t like and watching his businesses balloon in value since the election. Several Trump appointees (like CFTC Chair Nominee Brian Quintenz and acting administrator of the PHMSA Ben Kochman) have major conflicts of interests which will likely skew agency action towards the interests of corporations at the expense of the public. We also witnessed an instance of blatant bias in how legal actions are handled, with leniency toward Republicans.

Hearings, investigations, letters, and longshots: Four ways the Democrats can conduct Congressional Oversight as the minority party.

This week, we’ll focus on how DOGE’s priorities seem to reflect Musk’s grudges and interests in a less efficient government. Trying to be thorough without being totally thorough (the reign of ignorant terror is as vast as it is deep and consequential), here are several of the most salient examples of the Trump’s administration’s prioritization of corporate interests at the expense of the public. 

Week 4 of Trump’s presidency proves yet again that Trump is only in it for his billionaire buddies. This past week, Trump and Musk repeatedly reminded us that the federal government is ready to serve the interests of their wealthy friends. In fact, in one case, Trump managed to pair this ongoing corruption with another core theme of his administration: demonization of immigrants. As our Jeff Hauser noted, by reassigning Internal Revenue Service agents to the immigration crackdown, Trump has essentially granted billionaires a “get out of taxes free card.”Let’s take a look at some other recipients of Trumpworld’s largesse (Spoiler alert: The biggest is of course Elon Musk):