Trump Promises to Deliver $20M Directly to His Pocket Through 'meme' Crypto Coins, Will Not Disclose Who the Buyers Are

Want to know who, exactly, is putting millions of dollars, even tens of millions, directly into Donald Trump’s pocket through his “meme” crypto coins, and what they want in return?

Or whether his trip to the United Arab Emirates this week will include a visit with the state-backed firm that plans on using $2 billion of his “stable” coin?

Well, too bad. According to the White House, none of that is any of your business.

It truly is astounding, watching in real time as the president of the United States openly uses his office to enrich himself — the very definition of corruption — the way a third-world dictator might and, at least thus far, get away with it.

“It’s like the government is for sale,” said Norm Eisen, the top ethics lawyer in the Obama White House. “Trump is acting like some kind of a corrupt pirate or a medieval potentate.”

One reason why Trump’s blatant profiteering may be failing to gain traction is a widespread notion — one pushed by a lot of progressives — that Trump is doing nothing more than politicians have done for ages, that they’re all corrupt, that the whole system is corrupt, and so on.

They could not be more wrong. Full-on, cash-into-public-officials’-wallets corruption is actually rare in this country. What many people think of as political “corruption” is our system of financing campaigns, how those with money get access to candidates and elected officials. There is absolutely merit to this, particularly when it comes to groups that can accept contributions of unlimited size but never have to disclose the names of their donors.

What Trump is doing, however, is a difference of kind, not just degree.

Donations to campaigns, to super PACs, to nonprofit “issue” advocacy groups — all of this is to influence who gets elected to office. All that money is spent on campaigns. (And putting any of that money to personal use is a crime, as politicians who have been charged and convicted can attest.)

The secret buyers of Trump’s coins hoping to win an audience with him at his Virginia golf resort in two weeks, in contrast, are not contributing to any campaign. They are contributing to his personal bank account. Same with that Emirati firm, MGX.

There is zero precedent for this in the American presidency over at least the last century, with the exception of Trump’s first term. During those four years, he raked in millions from foreign and domestic interest groups and Republican candidates and parties who spent freely at his hotel and resort. This included official delegations from other countries that would reserve whole blocks of rooms at his hotel just five blocks from the White House.

Trump is acting like some kind of a corrupt pirate or a medieval potentate.

After his November win, Trump hit upon a scheme that requires none of the costs of owning and running a hotel or golf resort and will potentially bring him far, far more cash. Trump announced his “$TRUMP” coin three days before re-taking office. His family’s “World Liberty Financial” brokerage announced its “stable” crypto coin — stable because it is tied to the United States dollar through the instruments that back it — in March.

How much, precisely, Trump earns from these enterprises is impossible to determine from public records because crypto is largely unregulated and, thanks to Trump, will not even be scrutinized by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That Trump cares deeply about the success of these ventures, though, is obvious from his actions. He has repeatedly promoted his meme coin — which has zero intrinsic value — on social media, and last week even promoted the contest whose winners will earn the right to interact with him in small group settings on May 22.

HuffPost specifically asked several White House officials detailed questions about Trump’s involvement in his crypto ventures. They all declined to answer and instead referred to press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statements at Friday’s briefing.

“It’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” she said. “The president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws.”

And that is the inside joke about all of this. The federal conflict-of-interest laws specifically do not apply to the president.

Indeed, even suggesting that what Trump is doing is a “conflict of interest” — which is the way many journalists and other observers are describing it — wildly misses the mark.

When Jimmy Carter’s Department of Agriculture wrote and enforced regulations regarding peanut farming, that was a potential conflict of interest. What Trump is doing is a completely different animal.

He unabashedly created businesses that specifically use the fact that he is president to make money. How much interest would there be in a Trump “meme” coin if he were a former president living quietly in his Palm Beach country club? What are the chances of an Emirati business using $2