There Is No Limit to the Trump Administration’s Multifaceted Corruption: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our late-April selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
We launched Executive Watch, a real-time tracker of presidential abuses of power, early in Trump’s second term. Since that time, it has been meticulously documenting the illicit actions emanating from the White House.
Below is our biweekly selection of new entries posted in Executive Watch. You should bookmark this page that contains a chronological scroll of the abuses and this post that sorts and lists them under our 5 P categories:
After reading this roundup, tell us in the comments: Which of these abuses is the most troubling, and why?
April 24, 2026
The DOJ Targets SPLC for Infiltrating White Nationalists and Helping FBI Do Its Job
Category: Presidential Retribution
A hallmark of the Trump administration is its tolerance of overt racists, so it seems fitting that they would now be prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center—the legal bane of Klansmen and neo-Nazis—for infiltrating and exposing hate groups. But Donald Trump sees these groups as his allies, and he sees the SPLC as his enemy.
The Associated Press reports:
The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. …
The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement. …
The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.
The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics…. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The case here seems to be that the SPLC was committing fraud for keeping its secret informants, well, secret. This is a standard that would prevent anyone from investigating or infiltrating such groups, which we can assume is the whole point.
April 23, 2026
Trump Envoy Asked FIFA’s Italian President to Replace Iran’s Soccer Team With Italy’s in the World Cup
Category: Political Corruption
Not content to meddle with college football in America, Donald Trump sees himself as a kind of king of the world entitled to dictate the terms of global athletics. Hence the news that he tried to fix the World Cup soccer championship in a weird attempt to ingratiate himself with the Italians. You can’t make this stuff up.
The Washington Post reports:
Paolo Zampolli, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump who is now serving as U.S. special envoy for global partnerships, has suggested that Italy replace Iran in this year’s World Cup, the quadrennial soccer tournament, which will be held starting in June in the United States, Mexico and Canada. …
Zampolli, in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday, confirmed he had “recently” planted that idea with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, arguing that it would be “good for everybody” if Italy took Iran’s place. Zampolli said he also passed on the suggestion to Trump, who has said Iranian players are “welcome” while also calling Iran’s participation not “appropriate.” …
One person familiar with the overtures who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations said the outreach appeared to be aimed less at Italy’s politicians and more at currying favor with the Italian people—who have traditionally been seen as more pro-American than many Europeans, but more recently have soured on Washington, especially during the unpopular Iran war. …
Luciano Bonfiglio, president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, told reporters that “first of all, I don’t think it’s possible, and secondly, I’d feel offended. One needs to deserve going to the World Cup.” …
Trump has repeatedly inserted himself into what is typically the domain of FIFA and local organizing bodies, at times blurring the lines between sport and politics.
If the name Paolo Zampolli sounds familiar, that’s because he’s the guy who got ICE to deport the mother of his child to settle a custody dispute. In the Trump administration, it’s corruption all the way through, and they regard this as so normal they think everyone will just accept it while they openly rig the world’s biggest sports competition.
April 23, 2026
Trump Seeks New ‘Investments’ in His Crypto Memecoin Fund by Selling Access to Himself Even as Previous ‘Investors’ Lose Money
Category: Personal Grift
Nearly a year ago, Donald Trump held one of the most flagrantly corrupt events of his administration—and that’s saying something. It was a dinner in which the top buyers of his cryptocurrency “memecoin” got exclusive access to him, in exchange for pouring money into a transparent con to make him richer. Now he’s doing it again, but with even less pretense.
Politico reports:
Eleven months ago, a gala dinner for major investors in the cryptocurrency token set off a buying frenzy from MAGA-loving crypto traders, outrage among Democrats and a headline-grabbing protest at the event. But a similar event planned for Saturday at Mar-a-Lago is highlighting a growing disenchantment with Trump’s crypto ventures.
Over the last year, investors have shunned the so-called $TRUMP memecoin, a type of collectible crypto token whose logo depicts Trump raising his fist in the air and the words “Fight Fight Fight.” The memecoin is currently down more than 95 percent from its January 2025 high. …
“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘F--- this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.” …
The Mar-a-Lago event is being advertised as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!” It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. …
As of April 2025, the Trump family and its partners had made $320 million in memecoin-related trading fees.
Justin Sun, a Trump booster and business partner who got let off the hook by Trump for his own scams, is now complaining that the Trump family’s cryptocurrency trading company is ripping him off. But as Sen. Richard Blumenthal notes, in the article above, Trump has “normalized his corruption. … A lot of people have become inured to it.”
April 22, 2026
RFK Jr. Buries a Report Confirming the Efficacy of COVID Vaccines Because It Conflicts With His Quack Beliefs
Category: Political Corruption
In order to bring in a bloc of anti-vaccine voters, Donald Trump promised to appoint an anti-vaccine zealot as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Now, under his supervision, the agency is suppressing information about the efficacy of vaccines in order to prevent embarrassing the administration in advance of the midterm congressional elections.
The Washington Post has the inside information:
A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency’s flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.
The move, which has not been previously reported, has raised concerns among current and former officials that information about the vaccine’s benefits is being downplayed because it conflicts with the views of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been an outspoken critic of the shots. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda has received pointed questioning from lawmakers during budget hearings that began last week and conclude Wednesday. …
The report is gaining attention at a delicate political moment: The Trump administration has sought to soften its public posture on controversial vaccine actions ahead of the midterm elections. GOP pollsters have warned of the political risks of vaccine skepticism, and many voters oppose Kennedy’s efforts to roll back vaccine policies. Publishing findings showing the vaccine’s effectiveness would be at odds with the administration’s moves to restrict its use, particularly for children, former CDC officials say.
The report had cleared the agency’s scientific-review process, which includes dozens of scientists, according to two of the three people who spoke to The Post. Stopping an MMWR report at that stage is highly unusual, former CDC officials say.
This is the worst form of political corruption, in which vital government programs that are literally a matter of life and death are sabotaged for the political expediency of people in power—and the truth itself is buried to prevent them from having to confront it.
April 22, 2026
FBI Targets the Reporter Who Exposed that Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Was Obtaining Free Perks From the Agency
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump has been itching to make reporting itself into a crime, and now some of his minions at the FBI are inching toward finding the way to do it: Label reporting as “stalking.” They used this approach in an investigation of The New York Times reporter who broke a story about FBI Director Kash Patel misusing agency resources for his girlfriend.
The Times itself reports:
The F.B.I. began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Agents interviewed the girlfriend, queried databases for information on the reporter, Elizabeth Williamson, and recommended moving forward to determine whether Ms. Williamson broke federal stalking laws, the person said.
Those actions prompted concerns among some Justice Department officials who saw the inquiry as retaliation for an article that Mr. Patel and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, did not like, and who determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation, according to the person briefed on the matter.
The scrutiny of Ms. Williamson is an example of the Trump administration examining whether to criminalize routine news gathering practices that are widely considered protected by the First Amendment.
The FBI’s premise seems to be that politically connected people enjoy extreme protections for their privacy, even in stories relevant to the abuse of public funds—while reporters enjoy no protections whatsoever. The government did not end up filing charges in this case, but the point of exposing this story is to prevent them from working up the nerve to do it.
April 21, 2026
Trump’s Ballroom Contract Ensures Anonymity to Donors and Prevents Congress From Getting Answers for Conflict of Interest Queries
Category: Political Corruption
The worst part about Donald Trump’s plan to build a ginormous gilded ballroom is not the ballroom itself, as gaudy and bloated as it is. It’s the fact that it is being built with nearly half a billion dollars that Trump squeezed out of private donors—and the fact that, by the very design of the project, we don’t even get to know who paid these bribes.
However, The Washington Post at least got a hold of the contract that governs the donation scheme:
The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show. …
The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public. …
Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore who spent three years on a congressionally authorized commission scrutinizing wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the anonymity provisions potentially set up the Trump administration to block congressional inquiries into the project’s funding.
“If Congress knocks on the door, the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors,’” Tiefer said.
In some respects, the Trump administration’s corruption is all being done out in the open. We know that rich people and big corporations are giving millions to feed his vanity. But the details are all kept completely in the dark. We know that favors are being traded, but what those favors are and who gets them is not for us plebeians to know.
April 17, 2026
Trump Sues His Own IRS for $10 Billion for Leaking His Tax Returns That He Should Have Himself Disclosed
Category: Personal Grift
Donald Trump has filed multiple personal lawsuits against the U.S. government seeking massive payouts for supposed damages—from a government whose lawyers take orders from him. The biggest of these suits would be easy for the government to fight, unless it chooses to settle it with a massive payout of your tax dollars to Trump and his family.
It looks like this is exactly what Trump’s minions are planning to do.
The Washington Post reports:
Federal agencies are engaging in discussions to resolve a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump and his family over the leak of their tax information to news organizations, according to new federal court filings. …
The lawsuit, when it was filed, sought at least $10 billion in damages, claiming that the federal government did not properly safeguard the tax returns “from unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.” Trump is suing the government in a personal capacity, not as president. …
Along with the January lawsuit targeting the IRS, Trump has engaged in other legal efforts to claim a large amount of money against the government he oversees. He previously sought damages over the Justice Department’s investigations into the connection between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, and pursued a case over the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago property over alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Earlier this week, Democratic lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation that would, among other guardrails, bar sitting presidents and vice presidents from collecting settlement payments from the United States. The bill, called the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act, would also prohibit spouses, children, any trust “that exists for their benefit” or any “entity they own or control” from collecting damages payments through settlements with the federal government.
Filing a lawsuit as a personal plaintiff, then ordering its settlement from a defendant in Trump’s official control, is just a quasi-legal way of looting the U.S. Treasury for the benefit of America’s ruling family. What makes it possible is Trump’s gutting of any independence in the Justice Department and other federal agencies—and the compliance (so far) of Congress.
April 16, 2026
A Crony Is Selling Meetings to Businessmen With Trump In Exchange for $500,000 to MAGA PACs and Backing His Offer With Threats
Category: Personal Grift
No administration in history has ever sold influence for cash so openly, so blatantly, and at such a scale as this one. In the latest example, a well-connected conservative influence-peddler has been openly selling one-on-one meetings with Donald Trump in exchange for $500,000 contributions to his favorite rightwing PACs—and warning businessmen that they had better get themselves “aligned” with Trump, or else.
Popular Information has the story:
An email sent by Sinan Kanatsiz, an obscure but well-connected figure in Trump’s political orbit, offers its recipients a “one-on-one meeting and private photo with President Donald Trump” in exchange for a “contribution of $500,000 to TPUSA PAC.”
Kanatsiz describes his invitation as “strictly confidential and non-transferable.” The bottom of the message warns, “NOT FOR SHARING—CONFIDENTIAL.” The email was obtained by Popular Information from a source who received it. The source shared the email on the condition of anonymity, fearing professional consequences for providing information to a journalist. …
Kanatsiz warned business owners to “align” with Trump or suffer the consequences. “Donald Trump is a businessman and any business owner who doesn’t want to align with this administration will be left in the dark,” Kanatsiz told the [Orange County Business Journal].
Meetings and access to top officials have always been dangled as a reward for large donors, but rarely is this offered with such a direct, explicit, and vast price tag—or accompanied by such a direct threat. Yet this is how our system works now.
April 10, 2026
Trump Openly Muses Mass Pardons for Henchmen Who Commit Crimes for Him
Category: Political Corruption
The pardon power was created to grant clemency for the deserving—the unjustly prosecuted or those who have made restitution for their crimes through some other service to the country. Trump is instead using it to grant unlimited immunity to his supporters, and he is now promising to issue mass pardons to henchmen who break the law to do his bidding.
The Wall Street Journal has the scoop:
President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.
In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said. The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts. …
The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said. Trump is known to joke about matters that he later seriously pursues, and the frequent references have led some aides to believe he is serious about the pardons, too.
As the Journal puts it, “The unconditional power to pardon is one of the most sweeping powers offered to the presidency.” But it is clearly an abuse incompatible with a free society to exempt the entire executive branch and the president’s own political movement from the rule of law.
April 9, 2026
DOJ Seeks to Divert the Settlement in a Predatory Lending Case From Hispanic Victims to ICE to Target Them
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump has been eager to scrape together sources of funding that do not require him to ask the permission of Congress. Here is a novel one: Using settlements from unrelated Justice Department cases to divert money from restitution to victims and use it for Trump’s policy priorities. That’s exactly what his DOJ is doing in a case in Texas.
ProPublica has the story:
In December 2023, the U.S. Justice Department sued a Texas land developer it accused of duping tens of thousands of Hispanic residents into predatory mortgages, a landmark case for the Biden administration. …
Three years later, the Trump administration and Colony Ridge are on the verge of resolving the case. But the $68 million proposed settlement provides no money for victims of the alleged scheme. Instead, it sets aside $20 million for policing and immigration enforcement — a provision that may be used to target the very people who were victimized by the developer, according to former government officials who worked on such cases.
“I’ve never seen a settlement like this, with a complete misalignment between what you’re settling and what the resolution is,” said Elena Babinecz, who led fair lending investigations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for 12 years under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, before leaving in October. …
As federal investigators built a case around how Colony Ridge had treated its largely immigrant customers, conservative media and politicians aligned with Trump—who had made immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign—did not focus on how consumers had been harmed. They instead accused the development of being a haven for immigrants.
They claimed, without providing evidence, that the development was a base for Mexican drug cartels and a “no-go” zone for police. Local law enforcement disputed the assertions, saying that violent crime there was no different from other neighborhoods in and around Houston. State legislative panels convened to investigate the allegations also fizzled out after they were unable to substantiate such claims.
This is an attempt to harness the legal resources of the Department of Justice to shake down defendants for money for Trump’s political projects. Fortunately, the case will soon go before a judge who will have the ability to block the settlement—but not every judge is going to step up to prevent these abuses.
April 9, 2026
Foreign Steel Maker Gets Tariff Breaks In Exchange for Free Steel for the Trump Ballroom
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump’s massive White House ballroom has become a nexus of corruption before it even gets built. The latest news is that a foreign company offered to donate its steel for the ballroom—so much for “made in America”—and then promptly got a special break on Trump’s tariffs.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump has championed the U.S. steel industry, promising to strengthen it and to impose stiff tariffs on foreign metals to shield manufacturers from overseas competitors.
Yet … ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based firm that is the world’s second-largest steel maker, is providing steel for the structure of the ballroom project, the people said. They said the steel was produced in Europe, where the bulk of ArcelorMittal’s production is concentrated.
The White House has not disclosed details of the donation, but Mr. Trump said last October that he had been offered a donation of steel for the ballroom valued at $37 million.
The president’s comments came just days before the White House made adjustments to its tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal, by cutting in half the tariffs applied to exports of automotive steel from its Canadian plant.
Note that Trump could grant this favor because he claims the sole, arbitrary power to set and alter tariff rates, including for specific countries and industries. But it’s fitting, in a way, that his ballroom’s entire construction process offers a preview of the kind of corrupt deals that will be made there—if it ever gets built.
March 20, 2026
Another Trump Crony Uses ICE as His Muscle in a Child Custody Dispute
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump likes to say his administration is deporting “the worst of the worst,” but that description might better apply to the people who abuse political connections to send people to ICE camps in revenge for petty slights or child custody disputes.
There’s the case of ICE rounding up the mother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew against whom her brother was seeking revenge. Then there’s the state trooper who had his 85-year-old stepmother rounded up by ICE so he could grab his father’s inheritance. And now there is the case of a guy with connections to Donald and Melania Trump who used ICE to arrest the mother of his son.
The New York Times reports:
Last June, the man credited with introducing President Trump to his wife asked the administration for a favor.
Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent turned presidential special envoy, had learned that his Brazilian ex-girlfriend was in a Miami jail, arrested on charges of fraud at her workplace. They had been in a custody battle over their teenage son. Now he saw an opportunity.
He reached out to a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explaining that his ex was in the country illegally, according to records obtained by The New York Times and a person familiar with the communications. Could she be put in ICE detention? That could help him get his son back.
The official, David Venturella, promptly called the agency’s Miami office to ensure that ICE agents would pick up the woman from the jail before she was released on bail, according to the records and a person with knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity to discuss it. During the call, Mr. Venturella noted that the case was important to someone close to the White House. …
The ICE official’s willingness to spring into action for a Trump ally—even one in a low-level, largely ceremonial role—reflects a recurring theme of the second Trump administration: The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.
Combine this with pardons issued to Trump’s cronies (and many more promised for the future), and this is the birth of an American aristocracy. Those who have connections enjoy impunity from the law—but they can summon its full force against anyone who crosses them.
© The UnPopulist, 2026
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