Accusations of personal enrichment, influence peddling, and cronyism have dogged Trump since his first term in office, before which he famously stated: “A president can’t have a conflict of interest.”
But outrage reached a fever pitch this week after the president settled a legal case against his own government – on exceptionally generous terms – shortly after disclosing thousands of stock trades in recent months.
The settlement, signed by acting attorney general Todd Blanche – who is Trump’s former personal attorney – could shield him from a potential US$100 million fine.
It could also see taxpayer funds doled out to the president’s supporters who were convicted of violently attacking the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021 while seeking to prevent certification of former president Joe Biden’s election victory.
The money would come from a nearly US$1.8 billion “anti-weaponisation” fund, intended to compensate people who claim, like Trump, they were maliciously targeted under the Biden administration.
“The most brazen act of presidential corruption this century,” is how the left-leaning New York Times editorial board described the settlement, while joining many Democrats in describing the new pool of money as a “taxpayer-funded slush fund.”
“Donald Trump sued his own government. Trump’s DOJ (Department of Justice) settled with Trump. And now Trump gets a nearly US$2 billion slush fund to reward his own allies, loyalists, and insurrectionists,” said top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer.
On his first day back in office, Trump issued a blanket pardon of some 1,500 Jan 6 rioters.
Two police officers on duty during the violent protests have sued seeking to block the creation of the fund, whose board is to be handpicked by Blanche.
‘No legal precedent’
Even some Republican lawmakers have balked at the move.
“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a US$1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” said Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, who lost his re-election bid after Trump backed his primary opponent.
Noah Rosenblum, a law professor at New York University, told AFP that the fund’s creation was “interesting because it contributes to a different project of Trump’s, not just his personal enrichment while in the Oval Office.”
“But also his attempt to use his time as president to rewrite history and to punish his enemies.”
The settlement announcement came just days after Trump prompted uproar by disclosing thousands of stock trades of individual companies in the first quarter, worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
Judd Legum, a Democratic-aligned independent journalist who analysed the disclosure, told AFP that his “most striking findings” were that Trump “purchased stock in several cases either on the same day or just before making public statements that were promoting the companies.”
Trump’s family has dismissed any allegation of wrongdoing, arguing they – along with the president – are fully removed from stock trading decisions.
Vice president JD Vance put it bluntly at a recent press briefing: “The president doesn’t sit at the Oval Office on his computer…buying and selling stocks. That’s absurd.”
‘Personal brand’
As the first president who is also a convicted felon, Trump has so far weathered the mounting accusations.
“We’ve kind of numbed ourselves to these issues of conflict of interest and potentially corruption and that’s not a healthy place to be as a democracy,” said Legum.
Rosenblum argued that it’s not a “tolerance for corruption,” but that “Donald Trump has made his flouting of norms into his personal brand.”
Many Americans “might look at this and see obvious corruption and self-dealing,” he said.
“I think he knows that, and I think he sees that as a feature, not a bug, because it further endears him to his true supporters.”