Welcome to Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar, where we provide in-depth explanations of the material consequences—real and potential—of the Trump administration’s corrupt policymaking, with an emphasis on tangible harms to working people. Read our first thirty-five issues here, and follow us on Bluesky and X for more updates on this work.
Last week, President Trump issued a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In 2023, Zhao and Binance pleaded guilty to a handful of money laundering charges following an investigation by the Department of Justice during the Biden administration. Over the past month, Binance successfully lobbied Trump for Zhao’s pardon by hiring Checkmate Government Relations, a firm run by a friend of Don Jr., for a whopping $450,000. Zhao himself hired BigLaw attorney Teresa Goody Guillen, who just so happens to also represent Trump’s own crypto firm.
Of course, that pedestrian sort of corruption is not enough for this administration—Binance has also been instrumental in facilitating Trump’s ballooning crypto wealth since his reelection. According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Binance helped “build the technology” behind Trump’s USD1 coin and asked the United Arab Emirates to pay its $2 billion investment in Binance with USD1. Post pardon, Binance is now promoting Trump’s coin and World Liberty Financial on its X account.
While Trump’s personal crypto-fueled wealth continues to skyrocket, the past (and potentially future) victims of Binance and Zhao’s criminality are left without protection. Money laundering is not a victimless crime—Binance looked the other way as al-Qaida, Hamas, human traffickers, and other criminal and terrorist groups executed transactions through their exchange. The pardon sends a clear message to the crypto industry: make your money by any means necessary, the US government won’t stand in your way.
Corruption is a Ball(room)
A White House ‘renovation’ would never be complete under this administration without creating rampant opportunity for corruption. Over the past couple weeks, Trump’s vanity project reached a new low, literally, as the East Wing of the White House was reduced to rubble to make room for his gaudy ballroom.
To pay for this pet project, Trump is eschewing Congress—you know, the branch of government constitutionally mandated to appropriate federal funds—and turning to his friends in the private sector. The potential for pay-to-play schemes are immense. We don’t know how much each donor has given, but with a $350 million price tag (so far), each donation must be pretty significant.
Why pay so much for a ballroom no one wants? Well, as our friends at the American Prospect catalogued, almost all of the donors have either have pending business before the administration, or will benefit from a continued cozy relationship. Big Tech firms like Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft are looking for the administration to allow AI to run amok and for regulators to ignore monopolistic practices. Crypto interests, as we’ve seen, need their criminality to go unpunished. Railroad behemoth Union Pacific is in the midst of a PR campaign to garner support to further consolidate the industry (read more about that here in a guest post from Brett Heinz.) The list goes on and on. The donors will surely make more appearances in future Corruption Calendars as these investments pay off.
Just because these initial costs aren’t coming from taxpayers doesn’t mean taxpayers won’t bear a cost. Roll Call notes the ballroom will almost certainly need congressional appropriations for maintenance and upkeep, not to mention any cost overruns for the actual construction. Dean Baker points out that most or all of the donors will likely get a tax deduction subsidizing their favor purchase. The public is also paying in the form of an acquiescent media. CNN CEO Mark Thompson recently paid a visit to the White House, and, the next day, told CNN staff to soften its coverage on the East Wing demolition project. Perhaps Thompson is trying to cozy up to the administration as CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is up for sale. Trump himself reportedly favors a sale to David Ellison’s Paramount, which is already busy turning CBS News into a Trump-friendly venue under Bari Weiss’ leadership. Regardless of his motivations, the public winds up less informed and has yet another reason to distrust the media.
Oversight in Recess
Perhaps the greatest long term cost of the ballroom will be the further degradation of the power of Congress. In a normal course of events, the President would go to Congress with his plans and Congress would debate the plan’s merits and appropriate the funds as it saw fit. It would conduct oversight on cost overruns and favoritism in contracting. Instead, Congress, especially House leadership, is content to sit on the sidelines and allow the executive branch to do as it pleases with no pushback. Appropriations can be slashed or moved at any moment and bombs can rain on civilians in the Caribbean. The powers of war and the purse no longer meaningfully reside in the hands of the peoples’ branch. Congressional leadership will stand by Trump no matter what, even if it means turning the House into a vestigial branch on a seemingly endless recess.
To make matters worse, the public cannot fill in where Congress has abdicated its oversight duties. While the shutdown is underway, watchdogs have lost their ability to request ethics disclosures of Trump administration appointees. The Office of Government Ethics website, which houses ethics filings of White House and other high ranking officials, is currently “unable to fulfill requests for individual’s ethics documents […] for non-PAS or non-Presidentially Appointed officials.” That means that the financial disclosures of plenty of high-ranking, non-presidentially appointed officials are currently inaccessible to the public.
Outside of OGE, it’s unclear how many of the 670,000 furloughed federal employees are agency ethics officials (who respond to ethics filing requests for employees of their agencies.) But our recent request for financial disclosures from the DOJ’s Departmental Ethics Office was met with an auto response: “The appropriation that funds my salary has lapsed, and as a result I have been furloughed and am currently out of the office.” It’s incredibly convenient that during Trump’s shutdown, his administration can dodge the financial disclosures that act as one of the public’s few checks on corruption.
Like Father Like Son(s)
While the ballroom isn’t being used to enrich Trump personally (that we know of), he and his family are continuing to use the executive branch to rake in the cash. The Department of Justice is being extorted by the President to the tune of $230 million in the form of a potential personal settlement to Trump for supposed damages relating to investigations into his 2016 campaign’s alleged connections to Russian campaign interference and his 2024 alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Who would need to approve such a ridiculous sum? That would be Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the President’s former defense attorney. I wonder if he’ll be a neutral arbiter!
Trump sons, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, have learned well from their patriarch’s example. Despite having no official role in the administration, Kushner has been heavily involved in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas that resulted in the current ceasefire deal. He also remains at his day job, managing billions of dollars in investments from the Saudi and Qatari sovereign wealth funds, positioning himself to be a primary beneficiary if his and Trump’s plan to “redevelop” (meaning ethnically cleanse) Gaza’s waterfront areas.
Don Jr., too, is continuing to leverage his connection to the White House to pad his pockets. Unusual Machines, a drone parts manufacturer that last year paid Don Jr. 200,000 shares to come on as an advisor, inked a deal with the Pentagon to supply drone engines to the army. According to the New York Times, Unusual Machines only started to domestically manufacture the parts a few weeks ago. An unusual deal indeed. No one will weep for the arms manufacturers that missed out on this deal, but it’s worth wondering whether Don Jr. set up the deal for his personal gain, at the expense of taxpayers. Junior also bolstered the roster of his special-purpose acquisition company Colombier Acquisition Corp III, bringing on Fox News host Laura Ingraham (as if the network needed any more reason to parrot administration talking points.)
Quick Hits:
Bet on Insider Trading
The Trump crypto empire is expanding into the prediction market space, which is led by companies like Kalshi and Polymarket. The industry allows users to gamble on everything from presidential elections to the top Google search of the year. Now, the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social plans to launch Truth Predict with the help of Crypto.com. If the new platform operates like its competitors, Trump will gain enormous opportunities for self enrichment and insider trading, as the other platforms take bets on things directly influenced by the executive branch like presidential pardons, US military actions, and presidential meetings with foreign countries. How many poor suckers will drain their savings on a rigged bet?
ICEd Out
In a draconian raid in September, federal agents descended upon a South Shore Chicago apartment complex with hundreds of personnel, Black Hawk helicopters, and detention vans. The agents detained US citizens for hours and arrested migrants after busting down doors and ransacking apartments. It was a horrifying and potentially illegal raid—and it may have come at the request of a landlord seeking to evict its tenants.
According to reporting from In These Times, the landlord of the complex may have told federal agents that undocumented Venezuelan immigrants were squatting in some apartments. The building, which came under new management in 2024, has allegedly been in a state of perpetual neglect. While it’s still unclear whether the raid was indeed carried out at the request of management, housing and immigrant activists have long warned that this administration’s aggressive, indiscriminate approach would lead to retaliation by landlords who would rather see tenants arrested than improve conditions.
Is the Deal Sweet Enough?
Meanwhile, MAHA and MAGA tensions could be coming to a head over…soda. The American Beverage Association, a trade group representing the country’s major soda corporations, is conducting a lobbying campaign against RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement, particularly regarding the use of SNAP to buy soda. Kennedy and his allies are looking to end SNAP eligibility for soda and other processed foods, while the corporations claim this would “betray” his voters. The industry has turned to MAGA-aligned influencers, administration-adjacent pollsters, media funded by Leonard Leo and the Koch family. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to get their way—it may take a ballroom donation or a crypto investment to get their way.
Bombs Away
The Department of Energy started taking applications to sell 19 metric tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium that previously powered US nuclear weapons. It remains to be seen who will buy it, but small modular nuclear reactor start-up company Oklo is expected to be in the mix. The company is backed by Open AI’s Sam Altman and previously counted current Energy Secretary Chris Wright on its Board of Directors. We can only hope the sales are based on merit and safety, rather than administration connections (but I won’t hold my breath.)
Housing for Me but Not for the Military
The Atlantic reports that at least six senior Trump administration political appointees, including Stephen Miller, have moved into military housing to shield themselves from the public backlash to their actions. Because supply is already limited, and homes on military bases are generally not designed for families, the moves are straining the housing supply that is typically meant for senior military officials.
Image Credit: Thuglas82 on Reddit