CORRUPTION WATCH: Instead of “Draining the Swamp,” Trump, White House Officials, and Lobbyists are Raking in Millions Arrow

Donald Trump promised to "drain the swamp," yet under his administration the corruption has never been bigger. Lobbyists, White House officials, and Trump himself are raking in millions, selling influence and favors to the highest bidder. Whether it's his countless grifts or dropping corruption investigations and guardrails, Trump has made it clear the White House is up for sale. Trump won't hesitate to sell out the American people to make a quick buck, and everyone knows it.

GRIFT: Three senior Trump administration officials sold up to $10 million worth of Trump Media stock right before Donald Trump tanked the stock market with his chaotic and reckless trade policy.

Documents reveal that Dan Scavino, Donald Trump's deputy White House chief of staff, sold off up to $5 million worth of Trump Media stock just before the president announced tariffs in April.

The disclosure filings also show that Sergio Gor, Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, sold Trump Media securities valued between $15,001 and $50,000 on March 27, just days before the tariffs were announced.

Attorney General Pam Bondi previously disclosed a divestment of up to $5 million in Trump Media on April 2. The tariff announcement came after the markets closed that day.

Bloomberg News reported in May that the president's net worth had more than doubled to about $5.4 billion since the start of his reelection campaign.

GRIFT: Instead of draining the swamp, Trump is helping lobbyists rake in record-setting profits by selling influence and connections to the administration.

It is boom time in Washington for the influence industry, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican lobbyists. The top 10 lobbying firms in Washington took in about $123 million in the first quarter of 2025, compared with about $80 million in the same time frame of both Joe Biden's presidency and Trump's first term.

Trump, who once vowed to "drain the swamp," has relationships with many of the city's top lobbyists, who raise money for him and sometimes bring him business opportunities. … Washington is even less concerned about the appearance of impropriety than usual, longtime consultants say, as Trump finds ways to boost his personal income from cryptocurrency and real estate deals.

Several [lobbyists] described a sweet spot of making $3 million to $5 million a year, but staying off [law enforcement's] radar.

[Lobbyist] Barry Bennett, admitted last year to illegally failing to register an advocacy group he set up on Qatar's behalf, and agreed in a deal with the Justice Department that he wouldn't undertake foreign lobbying work until July 1. The Trump administration dismissed the case last week.

Some foreign government clients are now willing to spend $150,000 a month or more, he said, sums that [Bennett] described as once unheard of.

[Lobbyist Brian] Ballard, one of the president's biggest 2024 fundraisers, has taken clients to see Trump at the White House and at his clubs, and was spotted on a recent evening with a trio of clients at the president's golf club in Bedminster, N.J. … His firm reported $14 million in lobbying revenue in the first quarter of the year, more than doubling its haul from the previous quarter.

GRIFT: Trump is setting crypto policy based on his personal profit - triggering a "bidding war" to influence policy by funnelling millions into Trump's pockets.

Crypto advocates who were shunned in Washington during the Biden administration now enjoy astonishing access to the Trump White House, which has quickly unwound the regulatory crackdown.

All of that resulted from one of the great lobbying free-for-alls in recent history. … Virtually every step of Mr. Trump's transformation has been steered by the industry. … Mr. Trump embraced crypto when he saw it could generate huge profits for himself or his political groups.

At some points, the only meaningful check on the industry's power has come from rival crypto interests jockeying against one another to influence Mr. Trump. The competition has at times resembled a bidding war.

Just this spring, crypto investors around the world spent almost $200 million on a digital token called a memecoin marketed by Mr. Trump, vying for the chance to bend the president's ear at a dinner.

The founders of Kraken and Gemini, crypto exchanges that had been sued by the S.E.C., each donated more than $1 million to groups backing Mr. Trump.

Ripple donated nearly $5 million to Mr. Trump's inaugural committee … Days after the inaugural fund donation, Ripple's chief executive, Brad Garlinghouse, attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the president-elect. … [Ripple's consultant] Ms. Nocco appealed to the president to include Ripple's XRP in the stockpile, pointing out that the company had been generous to him, according to six people who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Mr. Trump heeded her request.

Mr. Trump wrote an addendum to his original post, expanding the list of coins to include Bitcoin as well as Ethereum, the second-most-valuable digital currency.

The update had an immediate beneficiary: [Trump's] family's crypto company, World Liberty Financial. It had recently bought a large stash of Ethereum, which rose in value by $33 million after the president's announcement.