Feeding at the Public Trough

Trump is stealing our tax dollars. He's not the only corrupt one.

(Photo by Canetti via Getty Images)

It would be one thing if Donald Trump’s solutions to inflation and the affordability crisis facing ordinary Americans just weren’t working. It would be one thing if the recklessly foolish adventurism in Iran—and the resources that it demands—was a temporary interruption of policies and resources focused on the actual needs of Americans, such as health care, housing, education and financial security. It would also be one thing if Americans saw Trump prospering and welcomed the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats.

But what’s going on is another thing entirely. Trump is indifferent to the affordability crisis. He mocks the very idea that it’s a real problem and lies that prices are going down when they’re not. He not only wages an unauthorized, unsupported war of choice—to the tune of over $50 billion so far—he’s counting on Congress to dramatically increase the Pentagon’s budget by slashing basic programs that provide a safety net for most Americans’ survival. (“We’re fighting wars,” Trump said during a private Easter luncheon. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”)

And he’s not just making the rich richer at everyone else’s expense. His daily focus is to aggressively, constantly exploit his office to steal from the public coffers to stuff his own pockets. It’s frankly disgusting, especially as he’s failing to address the affordability crisis. It’s deeply infuriating, especially as he puts American soldiers in harm’s way and is expanding death, destruction, pain and suffering in the Middle East and around the world.

All of this came crashing into stark relief in recent days. In my own case, first that’s because I paid my taxes on April 15. I’ve always treated contributing to the national government as a civic duty, indeed a patriotic commitment to the common good.

But this year? Trump and his sycophantic miscreants are using our money to abuse people at home and abroad and plunder the Treasury for their own benefit. I can’t find a single example of how this morally rotten bunch is making life better for everyday Americans, except for the cultists that are excited by cruelty, violence and the degradation of migrants and people of color.

Two recent cases demonstrate the depth of the regime’s corruption. One is to try and steal $10 billion from you, me and every taxpayer; Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury, which he essentially controls, because his and his sons’ tax records were leaked to news outlets. (Note that the unethical Trump has refused to ever release his tax records voluntarily.) This led to The New York Times revealing in 2020 that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and in 2017—and had not paid any income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years because of significant losses reported.

But now, Trump wants retribution—and he wants to take our money to get it.

In response, key Democrats are co-sponsoring the “Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act” that would ban a president and vice president abusing their power for personal gain. “Trump’s systematic exploitation of Executive Branch power to loot billions of dollars from American taxpayers is the ongoing scandal of this ruthlessly corrupt Administration,” Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement released last week. The new bill intends to “prevent the president from pursuing the emerging MAGA grift of suing the government as a ‘plaintiff’ on bogus grounds and then settling the suit as ‘defendant’ for big bucks.”

Added Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “While American families are getting flattened by skyrocketing costs, Donald Trump is trying to snatch up billions of taxpayer dollars to line his own pockets and settle personal scores.”

As Trump runs roughshod across ethical boundaries, it’s hard to see how this bill will stop him anytime soon, especially as the cowardly Republicans have proven they will only bow to and applaud his violations. That said, the bill seeks to ban the sitting president and VP from collecting settlement payments from the U.S. and “impose guardrails” on federal lawsuits seeking damages by only allowing them to collect compensatory damages if a federal court appoints an independent counsel and makes all proceedings public.

Alas, we are seeing the consequences of electing a profoundly unethical man whose primary interest is enriching himself and his family—and more than happy to exploit every loophole to take and take with no end and no bottom in sight. Enter son-in-law Jared Kushner, inserted into the Middle East mix. As I documented in “The Grifter’s War” several weeks ago, he’s exploiting his “unofficial” assignment with Iran to try and grab another $5 billion for himself and his investment firm.

They’re far from alone. It appears that a variety of corrupt insiders connected to the Trump Pentagon and beyond are exploiting the Iran war to enrich themselves. This is not hard to see: There has been a stunning amount of unregulated gambling on the war in online markets like Polymarket and Kalshi.

As The Guardian reported, that includes 16 bets making $100,000 on the precise timing of the Feb. 27 airstrikes on Iran, a single bet making $550,000 by predicting the end of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and, two weeks ago on April 7, accurately betting $950 million on when oil prices would go down, just before Trump announced a temporary ceasefire. These and other wagers, Guardian reporter Lauren Aratani wrote, “accurately predicted the precise timing of major developments in the US-Israel war with Iran, creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers and experts over potential insider trading.”

Do you really think Trump isn’t in on it, especially as he repeatedly shifts his plans, just in time to influence the various markets? “Not only the timing, but the amount of these bets makes it look very likely that someone had insider knowledge…and placed very, very substantial bets on it,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen.

Holman’s group filed a complaint with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets. But, unsurprisingly, the CFTC currently only has one commissioner (rather than the usual five), and he was appointed last year by Trump. Still, Reuters reports that the commission is investigating a series of highly questionable oil futures trades.

While it’s appalling to blithely tolerate insiders exploiting their government positions to corruptly enrich themselves, let’s not lose sight: This regime rots from the top. And, if Donald can do it…

Let me leave you with a handful of resources that explore the nauseating scale of theft.

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren tracked 100 acts of corruption in the first 100 days undertaken to enrich Trump and weaken agencies’ ability to push back.

• The Brennan Center chronicles the unprecedented profiteering, including Trump’s pocketing of an estimated $3 billion from his various business enterprises, while his family has raked in billions more, much of it from foreign governments and others seeking to curry favor.

• Campaign Legal Center has published a tracker documenting Trump’s corrupt rewards for major donors and supporters, which include pardons, diplomatic positions and dropped investigations and enforcement actions.

• Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are tracking the grift that they say exceeds an estimated $2.4 billion in realized profits for Trump from payments by foreign sources, corrupt oligarchs and others, plus nearly $6 billion for the total Trump family digital grift.

As long as Trump—immunized by the Supreme Court and shamelessly exploiting weak federal ethics laws—can count on a GOP majority in Congress, we have no reason to expect that the egregious corruption will stop. But it’s important both to document what is knowable and to demand that if and when Democrats take back Congress in the midterms, the corruption must be aggressively investigated and prosecuted.

Failure to hold accountable the grotesque abusers of our public resources for their personal gain would make a mockery of every taxpayer. That includes those who foolishly imagined he would lower costs and the rest of us fighting to end this hostile takeover. We should expect nothing less than responsible, ethical government, not piggish thieves feeding at the trough.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $50 a year or just $5 a month, if you’re not already. This helps sustain and expand the independent journalism of America, America, keep nearly all the content free for everyone and give you full access to the comments sections.