This newsletter was originally published on our Substack; read & subscribe here.
Welcome! We’re excited to introduce the Corruption Calendar, a new project from Revolving Door Project consisting of a weekly newsletter (you’re reading the first edition) and dedicated social media channels (follow us on X and Bluesky).
Our goal is simple: to chronicle the Trump favor machine by highlighting examples of corporate corruption shaping the Trump administration’s agenda and their material impact on everyday people. The Corruption Calendar will trace the lines of money and influence between corporations, billionaires, and executive branch decisionmaking.
We want to underscore the felt impacts of this corruption in our everyday lives. Shady dealings between the wealthy and powerful and members of the federal government range from brazen to more secretive, but they influence the air we breathe, the water we drink, the price of housing and other necessities, and far more. We believe it is critical to provide the public with the knowledge to make direct connections between Trumpworld corruption and their daily lives. The Calendar’s weekly installments will serve as a record of the myriad ways Trumpworld abuses of government power are designed to enrich the few at the expense of many.
Each week, we’ll send out a Friday morning Corruption Calendar installment, with a weekly theme and relevant examples. We encourage our collaborators and followers to send salient examples our way and to be in dialogue about relevant instances of corruption you’re tracking, as we expect they’ll be numerous. Reach us via email at [email protected] with the subject “CORRUPTION CALENDAR,” or on X or Bluesky.
Opening Salvo of Corporate Handouts
Trump signed 26 executive orders on his first day in office, and he hasn’t stopped there. These orders include everything from attacks on gender and sexual expression, to the nakedly unconstitutional attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, to the deregulation of offshore drilling. Our colleagues at the American Prospect, among others, have sifted through these orders in detail to highlight their impacts.
- Big Tech Capitulators Get Their First Rewards. In our inaugural installment (entendre intended) of the Corruption Calendar, we’re focusing on the prevalence of big tech CEOs in prominent seats at Trump’s inaugural events. The CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook, and OpenAI, among other major tech companies, were in attendance on Monday. The next day, Trump announced a massive private investment by OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle, in US artificial intelligence infrastructure, advertised to include a number of data centers, with ten reportedly already underway in Texas, according to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Trump also promised to use his presidential emergency powers to smooth construction projects and ease the companies’ access to energy. And the companies’ appetite for energy consumption is huge.
- As the Harvard Business Review notes: “the training process for a single AI model, such as a large language model, can consume thousands of megawatt hours of electricity and emit hundreds of tons of carbon. This is roughly equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of hundreds of households in America. Furthermore, AI model training can lead to the evaporation of an astonishing amount of fresh water into the atmosphere for data center heat rejection, potentially exacerbating stress on our already limited freshwater resources. All these environmental impacts are expected to escalate considerably, with the global AI energy demand projected to exponentially increase to at least 10 times the current level and exceed the annual electricity consumption of a small country like Belgium by 2026. In the United States, the rapidly growing AI demand is poised to drive data center energy consumption to about 6% of the nation’s total electricity usage in 2026, adding further pressure on grid infrastructures and highlighting the urgent need for sustainable solutions to support continued AI advancement.”
- Detention Center Companies Regain Access To Billions In Federal Contracts. Another private company already cashing in on its Trumpworld connections is GEO group. As our friend David Dayen at the Prospect noted, Trump rescinded the Biden-era Executive Order 14006, which “eliminated the use of privately operated criminal detention facilities.” As Dayen writes, “Bringing back privately operated detention […] simply enriches the private prison duopoly, GEO Group and CoreCivic. Both company’s stocks have soared since the election, and now, both stand to gain billions in federal contracts, mostly to detain undocumented immigrants. It’s a big win for GEO Group’s former lobbyist, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi.”
We highlighted Bondi’s ties to GEO Group last week during her confirmation process, flagging her work as a lobbyist for GEO while working at Ballard Partners. Bondi has a long history of receiving campaign funding, cushy appointments, and other favors from Trump, most notably while she was serving as Florida’s Attorney General and declined to continue an investigation into Trump University after receiving a $25K campaign donation from Trump’s foundation (a gift the IRS later fined Trump for). So, Trump handing out a favor to Bondi’s corporate friends is nothing new. It is a notable example to track however, as Trump’s focus on deportations stands to rely on cooperation with private prison companies, terrorizing immigrant communities across the country. While GEO focuses on snatching up federal contracts, facilities under its management subject immigrants and asylum seekers to disturbingly heinous conditions. The company reportedly limits detainees’ access to medical care while subjecting them to various forms of physical and psychological abuse. - Would-Be Revolvers And Their Corporate Clients Stand To Benefit From Trump’s Weakened Ethics Rules. One rescission that has gone under the radar but is particularly pertinent to us is Trump’s removal of Biden’s ethics order (h/t Politico Influence). This termination of Biden’s ethics pledge, which constituted cooling down periods for appointees entering and leaving the executive branch, will allow Trumpworld figures to immediately participate in policy matters involving or related to former clients. It also provides a lucrative exit pathway for Bidenworld alumni who are now free to immediately leverage their knowledge and connections on behalf of the highest bidders. Trump’s gift to his and his predecessor’s appointees clearly illustrates how easily a bipartisan benefit could work against the public’s interest, reinforcing our constant demand for public interest-minded people and policy. Gone are the days of the so-called promise to drain the swamp; welcome to the new era of governing with no feigned ethics commitments. (It’s worth noting that, while significantly better than the standards set by previous administrations including Trump 1.0, Biden’s ethics order still fell short of the kind of overhaul we’ve long advocated. See our ethics white paper for more.)