Presidential libraries have long carried the potential for corruption, allowing former presidents to solicit vast donations with no transparency. Donald Trump has taken this legal loophole and exploited it to a whole new degree. Early in his second term, he has already coerced vast sums in bogus legal settlements—and no one is quite sure where the money went.
The Washington Post reports:
[ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X] each committed millions of dollars to the project through legal settlements with Trump in the months after the 2024 presidential election, seeking to resolve claims they had harmed him by restricting his access to social media or defaming him in their coverage. The commitments totaled at least $63 million, according to company statements and media reports.
But the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc., which was set to receive at least some of the settlement funding, was administratively dissolved in September by Florida officials after it did not submit a mandatory annual report. …
A second nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was created last year and reported in December that it received $50 million in contributions but has yet to confirm publicly that it took possession of the settlements. Federal rules do not require presidential library nonprofits to disclose their donors. …
Trump has said that he plans to use his planned Miami-based library to take possession of a Boeing 747-8 aircraft given by Qatar and valued at $400 million, among other gifts. The president’s allies have also worked to acquire prized real estate for the site.
Everything about the “imperial presidency” has become bloated and exaggerated, including the vast monuments presidents erect to themselves. But no one has yet matched Trump in turning the presidential library into a vehicle for soliciting bribes and as a permanent personal slush fund for his own aggrandizement.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
© The UnPopulist, 2026
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