Trump & Cronies Top 10 Worst…Presidential Profiteering Scandals

 (By Norman Eisen and Gabriel Lezra, The Contrarian, 13 Dec 2025)

 No president in American history has profited off the presidency the way Donald Trump has—and it’s not close. In his first term, he benefited to the tune of millions of dollars in shady schemes, such as foreign governments using his properties for their events. But his second term has been orders of magnitude worse, as we document in this second installment of our series on Trump’s Top 10 Worst. From the Qatari plane scandal to selling access to purchasers of his meme coin to his family members raking in riches, Trump and co. are openly dangling special treatment for those who are willing to pay. The White House denies any wrongdoing, stating “the American public believe it’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.” Meanwhile, the president has reportedly increased his net worth by over $3 billion so far during the first year of his second term.

That’s why we’ve had a hard time picking the worst instances of his corrupt self-enrichment, not to mention that of his cronies and family. So if you don’t see your favorite scheme on this list, don’t worry—there are too many! Here’s our latest Top 10 Worst list, followed, as usual, by this week’s brilliant Contrarian coverage.

1: Trump’s Qatari Boeing

In May, Qatar presented Trump and his administration with a $400 million Boeing 747, ostensibly to use as Air Force One—a present reportedly worth more than all foreign gifts bestowed on all former American presidents combined. As my colleagues and I noted in a legal complaint, the Trump administration is apparently illegally transferring the nearly $1 billion from a nuclear weapons program at the Defense Department to retrofit the jet, a gross mismanagement of key federal funds. And it will barely have time in the air before Trump’s term ends and it gets “donated” to Trump’s presidential library for his continued use. Meanwhile, after the transfer, Qatar got a guarantee that the United States will defend Qatar through “diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military” measures and a new “military facility” for Qatar’s Air Force at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Trump has defended the transfer of the plane as a legitimate “gift” and the White House said that “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency.”

Current Status: We’re waiting for the Government Accountability Office to act on our complaint—but it’s hard to imagine a clearer conflict of interest.

2: World Liberty Financial

After the Trump family helped promote cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial (WLFI), it began encouraging foreign investors to buy into the venture. The conflicts of interest have since gotten only worse, as we discuss in our report on Trump’s crypto conflicts. This includes the involvement of alleged fraudster Justin Sun (see No. 6 below). Then there is “shadowy” United Arab Emirates-based Aqua1 Foundation, which invested $100 million in WLFI in June. WLFI also sold its tokens to at least 62 users that also used TornadoCash, an Office of Foreign Asset Control-sanctioned crypto mixing service that the Justice Department alleged helped criminals and hackers “launder more than $1 billion of illicit assets.” The Biden administration sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022, but the Trump administration lifted the sanctions in March 2025. Donald Trump Jr. has said that the idea that WLFI investors may be seeking favor with the Trump administration is “complete nonsense.”

Current Status: Not only is WLFI—and Trump’s crypto empire—flourishing, but Congress is rushing to pass legislation creating a market structure for cryptocurrency without any checks on Trump’s ability to influence the market to his benefit. Our legal team is working night and day to stop that from happening.

3: The Meme Coin Grift

Trump’s meme coin represents perhaps his most brash self-enrichment scheme, one unlike anything we have ever seen from an American president. According to the website, the token is “intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol “$TRUMP“—and not as an investment or security. But of course, this slice of code was listed on various crypto exchanges and immediately surged in price. Since its launch, the coin’s value closely followed Trump’s announcements, with wild fluctuations. The president even hosted an exclusive dinner for meme coin “investors” who spent tens of thousands to buy the digital token. This access auction was a scheme so brazen—even for Trump—that it left ethics experts like us stunned. The White House denies any conflicts of interest.

Current Status: The Trump-dominated Securities and Exchange Commission has shown zero interest in examining Trump’s meme coin activities. This makes defeating the new crypto market bill even more important. Our fight continues.

4: Trump’s Foreign Real Estate Boom

Trump is set to more than triple his foreign properties during this term, as real estate developers are working on at least 23 Trump-branded projects. These projects are a global feeding frenzy for foreign governments looking to curry favor with the president. To take only a few examples, Trump is building a hotel, golf course, and residences in Oman on property owned by the government. A Saudi real estate firm (with close ties to the Saudi government) is the Trump Organization’s partner in various real estate deals, including a new Trump Hotel in Dubai and a residential tower in Jeddah. In November, the Trump Organization announced a project in the Maldives with the same Saudi firm. The very next day, Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince and Jared Kushner buddy Mohammed bin Salman and announced an “Economic and Defense Partnership” with the kingdom. Hard to come up with better reasons why the Constitution prohibits the president from accepting foreign emoluments. When asked about possible conflicts of interest in the context of Trump’s then-upcoming trip to the Middle East, Press Secretary Karoline Levitt claimed that it was, “ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”

Current Status: Each individual property may constitute an emoluments clause violation. We at Democracy Defenders Fund include leaders of the team that won multiple emoluments cases against Trump in his first term, and we are evaluating how to fight back now. Watch this space!

5: The USD1 Binance-UAE Deal

Less than two months after Trump’s WLFI launched USD1, its stablecoin, a UAE state-backed investment firm announced that it would use USD1 to finance a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance, which was then under SEC investigation. In May, Binance decided to list USD1–and, days after the announcement, Trump’s SEC dropped its securities case against the exchange. And then there’s Trump’s treatment of Binance’s head Changpen “CZ” Zhao. He pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023 and got a Trump pardon in October of this year. The White House defended Zhao, criticized his prosecution, and blamed the Biden administration for creating a “war on cryptocurrency.“

Current Status: Expect to keep hearing about this one—especially as campaign season approaches.

6: Justin Sun’s “Investment” in Trump Crypto

Justin Sun is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur facing SEC fraud charges. Sun loudly bought $75 million of WLFI tokens starting in November 2024. The SEC in March 2025 delayed its fraud case against Sun. Come May 2025, Sun—also loudly—purchased $20 million of Trump’s meme coin, gaining entrance to a personal dinner with the president. The timing and scale of the investments raise questions about whether Sun is trying to buy his way out of federal trouble—and into Trump’s good graces. When pressed about the ethics of the crypto dinner, Leavitt attempted to assuage fears, “I can assure you, the president acts with only the interests of the American public in mind.”

Current Status: Sun continues expanding his cryptocurrency empire while his case remains delayed according to the most recent entry in the court docket.

7: Tom Homan’s $50,000

In September 2024, before Trump’s election, his future Border Czar Tom Homan allegedly accepted a $50,000 payment from undercover federal agents posing as business executives. Homan reportedly indicated he could assist them to secure government contracts should Trump win—and there is said to be a tape in government hands. After the Trump team took over, the investigation was reportedly closed. Homan says that he did “nothing criminal” and that “I recused myself from any discussions of any contract or any monetary decisions like that….”

Current Status: My Democracy Defenders colleagues and I stepped in, launching an investigation in September. It is continuing and all legal remedies are on the table.

The $300 Million Ballroom Boondoggle

In the middle of the longest government shutdown ever, as federal workers were going without pay and standing in bread lines, Trump ordered the destruction of the historic East Wing to build a massive, $300 million-plus ballroom. Trump says he’s funding the ballroom through private sponsorships. What a kind, altruistic gesture from the corporate donors, who have over the years received billions in federal contracts–and 14 of whom are currently facing federal enforcement actions. The White House has advised journalists concerned about the lack of oversight to, “trust the process,” and said that, “a submission is not required legally,” to tear down the East Wing.

Current Status: A lawsuit has just been filed to stop construction because of alleged legal violations and a TRO hearing is set for next week.

The Executive Branch Club

After his father was sworn in, Donald Trump Jr. and business partners Zach and Alex Witkoff (the sons of Trump envoy Steve Witkoff) and others, launched a new private club in D.C. They brazenly named it “The Executive Branch.” This tacky tavern–whose “coat of arms” is topped by an ersatz presidential eagle–raises serious ethics concerns. Members are lining the pockets of the Trump and Witkoff families with reported huge initiation fees (said to be up to $500,000) plus additional annual dues for the well-heeled to mingle with government officials and their kin–not unlike its likely inspiration, Mar-a-Lago.

Current Status: The venue continues to serve as a potential influence-peddling hotspot.

Amazon Prime Video Presents: Melania

About two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Amazon Prime Video announced that it was releasing a documentary about Melania Trump—a $40 million bargain for Amazon. It’s hard to imagine Amazon picking up this project at this hefty price point without considering the company’s relationship with the Trumps. Amazon just settled one major case brought against it by the Biden Federal Trade Commission for $2.5 billion, with another potentially even larger case ongoing, and the company is also a large federal contractor (it received another $1 billion in expanded cloud computing contracts in August). An Amazon spokesperson stated, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it.”

Current Status: The film is set to hit theaters in January, kicking off what promises to be another year of the Trump family’s shameless profiteering off the presidency. Amazon has released a still image of Melania peering out a car window onto a nondescript tarmac—not exactly a $40 million view.

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Supreme Court Showdown Exposes Shaky Case Against Birthright Citizenship

 (By John Yoo, MSN.com, 12 December 2025)

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear challenges to President Donald Trump’sDonald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes all babies born on American territory citizens. Trump’s effort to overturn the traditional reading of the constitutional text and history should not succeed.

Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment provided a constitutional definition of citizenship for the first time. It declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." In antebellum America, states granted citizenship: they all followed the British rule of jus soli (citizenship determined by place of birth) rather than the European rule of jus sanguinis (citizenship determined by parental lineage). As the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone explained: "the children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such." Upon independence, the American states incorporated the British rule into their own laws.

Congress did not draft the Fourteenth Amendment to change this practice, but to affirm it in the face of the most grievous travesty in American constitutional history: slavery. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger Taney concluded that slaves — even those born in the United States — could never become American citizens. According to Taney, the Founders believed that Black Americans could never become equal, even though the Constitution did not exclude them from citizenship nor prevent Congress or the states from protecting their rights.  The Fourteenth Amendment directly overruled Dred Scott. It forever prevents the government from depriving any ethnic, religious or political group of citizenship.

The Supreme Court. Getty Images© Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images

The only way to avoid this clear reading of the constitutional text is to misread the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Claremont Institute scholars (many of whom I count as friends) laid the intellectual foundations for the Trump executive order; they argue that this phrase created an exception to jus soli. Claremont scholars Edward Erler and John Eastman argue that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" requires that a citizen not only be born on American territory, but that his parents also be legally present. Because aliens owe allegiance to another nation, they maintain, they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

The Claremont Institute reading implausibly holds that the Reconstruction Congress simultaneously narrowed citizenship for aliens even as it dramatically expanded citizenship for freed slaves. There is little reason to understand Reconstruction — which was responsible for the greatest expansion of constitutional rights since the Bill of Rights — in this way.  This argument also misreads the text of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Everyone on our territory, even aliens, falls under the jurisdiction of the United States. Imagine reading the rule differently. If aliens did not fall within our jurisdiction while on our territory, they could violate the law and claim that the government had no jurisdiction to arrest, try and punish them.

Critics, however, respond that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" must refer to citizen parents or risk being redundant when being born on U.S. territory. But at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification, domestic and international law recognized that narrow categories of people could be within American territory but not under its laws. Foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers occupying U.S. territory, for example, are immune from our domestic laws even when present on our soil. A third important category demonstrates that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was no mere surplusage: At the time of Reconstruction, American Indians residing on tribal lands were not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Once the federal government reduced tribal sovereignty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it extended birthright citizenship to Indians in 1924.

The Fourteenth Amendment’s drafting supports this straightforward reading. The 1866 Civil Rights Act, passed just two years before ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, extended birthright citizenship to those born in the U.S. except those "subject to any foreign power" and "Indians not taxed." The Reconstruction Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment because of uncertainty over federal power to enact the 1866 Act. If the Amendment’s drafters had wanted "jurisdiction" to exclude children of aliens, they could have simply borrowed the exact language from the 1866 Act to extend citizenship only to those born to parents with no "allegiance to a foreign power."

United States Supreme Court (front row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pose for their official portrait on October 7, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Getty Images© Getty Images

 We have few records of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification debates in state legislatures, which is why constitutional practice and common-law history are of such central importance. But the few instances in which Congress addressed the issue appear to support birthright citizenship. When the Fourteenth Amendment came to the floor, for example, congressional critics recognized the broad sweep of the birthright citizenship language. Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan asked supporters of the amendment: "Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child born of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen?" California Sen. John Conness responded in the affirmative. Conness would lose re-election due to anti-Chinese sentiment in California.

Courts have never questioned this understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court upheld the citizenship of a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. The Chinese Exclusion Acts barred the parents from citizenship, but the government could not deny citizenship to the child. The Court declared that "the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens." The Court rejected the claim that aliens are not within "the jurisdiction" of the United States. Critics respond that Wong Kim Ark does not apply to illegal aliens because the parents were in the United States legally. But at the time, the federal government had yet to pass comprehensive immigration laws that distinguished between legal and illegal aliens. The parents’ legal status made no difference.

President Trump is entitled to ask the Court to overturn Wong Kim Ark. But his administration must persuade the justices to disregard the plain text of the Constitution, the weight of the historical evidence from the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and more than 140 years of unbroken government practice and judicial interpretation. 

A conservative, originalist Supreme Court is unlikely to reject the traditional American understanding of citizenship held from the time of the Founding through Reconstruction to today.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/john-yoo-supreme-court-showdown-exposes-shaky-case-against-birthright-citizenship/ar-AA1S4cBE?ocid=socialshare