Pay to Play: Trump’s Record of Corruption

We are currently witnessing corruption as we have never seen before under President Trump. President Trump ran his campaign promising to fight for working— and middle-class Americans. He said he would bring costs down on Day 1. Instead, he has weaponized the office of the President to enrich himself and his family.

The Appropriations Committee is charged with making sure departments are spending taxpayer dollars wisely and following the law. My office has compiled a list of this gross display of corruption so far. 

The Art of the Steal:

Luxury Gifts from Foreign Actors

Received a luxury jet from the Qatari government, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, in apparent violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

In May of 2025, an investment firm linked to the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates deposited $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company founded in 2024 by the Trump and Witkoff families.

Two weeks later, the Trump Administration allowed the U.A.E. access to hundreds of thousands of the world’s most advanced and scarce computer chips, a crucial tool in the high-stakes race to dominate artificial intelligence.  

Many of the chips would go to G42, a sprawling technology firm controlled by a member of the U.A.E.’s ruling family, despite national security concerns that these chips could be shared with China.

Trump’s Get Out of Jail Free Card

Multiple news outlets have reported on the Trump Administration’s practice of receiving pay in exchange for pardons or clemency for millionaire and billionaire criminals, including, for example, Trevor Milton, who was pardoned in March 2025 after pouring nearly $2 million into pro-Trump political committees in 2024.

In another case, Changpeng Zhao the founder of Binance pleaded guilty to money laundering and was subsequently pardoned last October after the company he founded took steps that effectively enriched the Trump family with hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Four large players in the cryptocurrency industry—Robinhood Markets, Coinbase, Ripple, and Kraken—each made donations ranging from $1 to $5 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural fund.  

Then in the early months of the Trump Administration, these companies had Securities and Exchange Commission cases against them dismissed, and the Justice Department disbanded a crypto crimes task force.

Taxpayer Funded Handouts for Friends and Family

White House advisor Peter Navarro, a friend of Donald Trump Junior, got the Pentagon to loan more than $600 million to Vulcan Elements, a small North Carolina startup founded just two years earlier but linked to Donald Trump Junior.  Estimates of the company’s valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced. 

As ProPublica has reported, this deal was also a win for Trump Junior’s venture capital firm 1789 Capital, which took a stake in Vulcan about three months before the Pentagon announced the deal.

Unusual Machines, a drone company in which Donald Trump Junior is a shareholder and advisory board member, saw its share value surge 65 percent last week after the Wall Street Journal reported it is one of the companies in talks with the Pentagon for funding.

Another company called Powerus, backed by President Trump’s two oldest sons, is selling drone interceptors to Persian Gulf countries that are under attack by Iran and thus dependent on the U.S. military that is being led by President Trump.