You Already Knew He's The WORST President Ever— Did You Also Know He's The Most Blatantly Corrupt?
- Howie Klein
- 6 hours ago
- 8 min read
Trump And Crypto Were Made For Each Other
You may have noticed that bribes continue to flow towards Señor Trumpanzyy and his party from numerous sources, both old and new. And it’s almost like cryptocurrency was invented just for that! One old source of Trump corruption was covered by the NY Times Thursday: Indicted ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Pays Roger Stone $600,000 to Lobby for Him. Bitcoin Jesus (Roger Ver) is a quintessential MAGAt. Kenneth Vogel and David Yaffe-Bellany reported that longtime Trump crony, Roger Stone, “has been lobbying for a pioneering cryptocurrency investor known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ who is facing federal fraud and criminal tax charges… Stone filed paperwork last month indicating that he had been retained by Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor who was charged last year and accused of shielding his cryptocurrency holdings from $48 million in taxes. Stone noted in a filing last week that he had been paid $600,000 by Ver since early February to help his client’s case, partly by trying to abolish the tax provisions at the heart of the charges. Ver, a former California resident who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014, was arrested last year in Spain, according to the Justice Department, which announced plans at the time to extradite him.”
A typical Trumpian sleaze bag character, Ver whines he’s being persecuted because of his political views— rather than because he’s a thief and tax cheat. He expects a pardon from Trump and he knows Stone is a good conduit to use to pay for one.
Although Trump has his own conduit to sell things like pardons to rich people now, one that cuts out the middlemen like Stone who take their percentages. And that’s his memecoin, certainly the most blatantly corrupt endeavor by any American president in history. What makes this moment especially dangerous is that Trump is governing as a crime boss. His regime is a legal defense strategy dressed up as a political movement. As new grifters like “Bitcoin Jesus” join the old guard of real estate swindlers, fossil fuel barons, Christian nationalists and neo-fascists, what we’re watching isn’t an example of governance— it’s a hostile takeover of American democracy by a global kleptocratic network. The message is loud and clear: corruption isn’t just tolerated here— it’s in charge. No American president has ever been so brazenly, unapologetically corrupt. Not Nixon, with his secret tapes and enemies list; not Harding, with his Teapot Dome sleaze. Trump outpaces them all— not just in scale, but in sheer shamelessness. He didn’t try to hide the graft; he broadcast it. From charging the Secret Service inflated rates at his own hotels, to soliciting foreign interference in multiple elections, to monetizing pardons and leveraging the presidency for personal profit— Trump normalized what was once unthinkable. And now, in his post-presidency, the corruption has metastasized into a full-blown racket, where loyalty to the cult isn’t ideological, it’s transactional. It's about access, payback and power— and it’s rotting the core of the republic.
On Thursday, Drew Harwell and Jeremy Merrill reported that shady characters have poured tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s meme coin since he advertised on Wednesday that top purchasers could join him for an “intimate private dinner” next month. “The holders of 27 crypto wallets have each acquired more than 100,000 $TRUMP coins, stakes worth about a million dollars each, since noon on Wednesday, when the team announced that the 220 top coin holders would be rewarded with a ‘night to remember’ on May 22 at the president’s Trump National Golf Club outside Washington. Crypto wallets are generally anonymous, making it challenging to identify who the purchasers were.”
They also advertised something so blatantly illegal that they partially removed it, no doubt at the insistence of White House lawyers: an offer of a tour of the White House for the 25 top $TRUMP coins purchasers. Now they’re just offering a tour but with no indication of what. This idea of offering direct presidential access to those who pay into a project benefiting the Trump personal bottom line would be enough to get him impeached if House Republicans weren’t so wedded to enabling his criminality. Not one House Republican has spoken out about this.
Harwell and Merrill wrote that “the biggest buyer acquired 2 million coins worth about $24 million.” That’s a substantial bribe, especially coming from a criminal in China who desperately needs a pardon from Trump. “Taken together, the 27 wallets acquired more than 8 million $TRUMP coins, worth about $100 million as of Thursday afternoon… The coin’s price has surged more than 30 percent since the announcement, to about $12, boosting the value of the crypto wallets owned by a digital firm affiliated with Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, by roughly $100 million… Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., have described the $TRUMP coin as the ‘hottest digital meme on earth.’”
The dinner promotion “creates the specter of a pay-to-play deal” for wealthy spenders eager to bend the president’s ear, said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel for the watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Action and a former White House associate counsel under President Barack Obama.
“He’s actually selling access, personal access, to him and to the White House if people invest in this meme coin, which really has no intrinsic value,” Canter said.
“If you are a foreign government burdened by tariffs, will you be enticed to invest? If you’re a criminal felon, will you maybe invest in hopes of they’ll give you an opportunity to make your case for a pardon?”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) posted on Twitter: “This isn’t Trump just being Trump. The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.”
…Since launching days before the inauguration in January, the meme coin has earned for Trump and his business partners about $41 million in fees and $312 million in sales of the coin, according to the Post analysis.
… The Post review found that several of the coin’s recent acquirers have received funds from Binance, a crypto exchange that doesn’t allow U.S. customers, suggesting that they may not be Americans.
The biggest wallet on the leader board, calling itself “Sun,” has more than 1.1 million of the coins, a stake now worth more than $13 million on paper. The wallet is registered by HTX, a crypto exchange founded in China whose global advisory board includes the crypto billionaire Justin Sun.
Sun invested $30 million in Trump's World Liberty Financial last year while under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on charges of fraud. The SEC asked a federal judge to halt the a in February, and the Justice Department earlier this month directed prosecutors to no longer pursue or investigate certain kinds of crypto crimes.
The meme coin’s website, which includes heavily edited photos of Trump at a dinner table, says the gala dinner is “one of the most exclusive events in the world” and that invitees will have to pay all expenses, including for the meal, parking and tips.
The top 25 coin holders will also be invited to tour the White House and attend a private “VIP reception” with Trump. But the team warns in the terms and conditions that Trump may not be able to attend the dinner, which “may be canceled for any reason.” If Trump cannot attend, the fine print says, meme coin holders could instead receive a “limited edition” Trump NFT, or non-fungible token— the crypto equivalent of a digital trading card.
Dan Pfeiffer’s entertaining take is to reiterate that Senor Trunmpanzee “is the most corrupt person to ever occupy the Oval Office— yes, even more corrupt than Richard Nixon. Trump and his entire family have always used public service as a means to enrich themselves… But even I was shocked by the brazenness of Trump’s latest get-rich(er) scheme.”
Noting that the “event is wholly corrupt… an opportunity for people to buy access to the President of the United States without any regulation, oversight, or transparency… bribery pure and simple,” he noted that Trump’s team released this somewhat unbelievable graphic.
For anyone who may have forgotten, Pfeiffer wrote that “Trump is the most transactional person on the planet, and the transaction here is very clear— money for access. This surge in activity is enriching him in two ways. First, Trump makes money on the sale of every single $TRUMP coin. Second, Trump owns a substantial portion of the coins, so a run-up in price inflates his net worth and gives him (and his family and friends) the opportunity to sell some coins at a massive profit… What’s happening here is just semi-legalized bribery. These investors are putting money directly into Trump’s pocket. I promise you that no reputable lawyer would ever allow a President to engage in such brazen conduct. Trump can only do this because he controls the Department of Justice and FBI and has immunity from the Supreme Court.”
We all laughed when Trump started selling NFTs (digital trading cards) during his presidential campaign. I am pretty sure we played this video on Pod Save America and had a good laugh at Trump’s expense.
But the Trump family’s foray into cryptocurrency has led to some of the most blatant corruption to date.
In 2023, the SEC charged Justin Sun, a prominent crypto investor, with fraud, market manipulation, and other crimes. Sun then invested $75 million into Trump’s various crypto ventures and made sure that everyone, including President Trump, knew about it. Lo and behold, the SEC dropped their charges against Sun after Trump took office.
Binance is a crypto exchange that pleaded guilty during the Biden Administration to facilitating money laundering, including funds sent to terrorist groups like ISIS. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported:
Executives from cryptocurrency exchange Binance met with Treasury Department officials last month and discussed loosening U.S. government oversight on the company, while it was also exploring a business deal with a Trump family crypto venture, according to people familiar with the talks.
The Binance executives asked Treasury officials in Washington to remove a U.S. monitor that oversees the exchange’s compliance with anti-money-laundering laws, some of the people said. The move would mark a first step toward returning the company, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to violating those laws, to the U.S. market.
Binance has also been in talks to list a new dollar-pegged cryptocurrency from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by President Trump’s family, other people familiar with the discussions said. Listing the token, known as a stablecoin, could catapult it into a huge market and potentially bring in billions in profit for the family.
The level of corruption is unprecedented in American history. We need to make sure that everyone knows about it. When people voted for change, this isn’t the change they wanted.
All this prompted Elizabeth Warren to send this letter to the head of the SEC. “In light of recent reports that President Trump’s company, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), has reached a deal with Crypto.com and Yorkville America Digital to ‘launch a series of exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products’ by ‘the end of the year,’ I write to ask the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) how it plans to objectively ensure that the company’s investment products comply with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements. All SEC decisions and actions involving TMTG and President Trump’s financial interests should be carefully managed to ensure that they are free from undue political interference and influence from the President and his administration… TMTG’s proposed sale of investment products likely to require the SEC’s regulatory approval represents an extraordinary conflict of interest. TMTG, and President Trump, stand to benefit through investment by TMTG of cash reserves in these financial products, as well as from fees from investors in these products. Meanwhile, the President, through his statements, social media posts, and actions, has the potential to influence markets for the benefit of TMTG. The situation, in which ‘a sitting President has asked a federal agency within his administration to approve investment products by a company he controls,’ is ‘without precedent’ in the Commission’s history. Furthermore, the President has attempted to assert his dominance over decision-making at independent agencies like the SEC through executive orders and firings, putting further pressure on the Commission to fall in line.”
It’s ironic that on the same day Trump is encouraging foreign criminals to bribe him, he was trying to defund the Democratic Party with phony charges that ActBlue takes contributions from overseas.