Trump Is Using His Office to Enrich Himself and His Family: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our late-October selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
The UnPopulist, alongside its parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), launched Executive Watch earlier this year. This project, which was designed to track presidential abuses of power as they are happening, has been meticulously documenting each illicit action 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 do you take to be the most troubling, and why?
Oct. 24, 2025
Crooked Trump Hands a Defense Contract to a Company That Hires Don Jr. as an Advisor for Millions of Dollars
Category: Personal Grift
It is, unfortunately, pretty normal for the children and other relatives of presidents to make money from their proximity of power, but Donald Trump’s kids are doing it on an industrial scale. The Financial Times just reported that a big defense contract has been granted to an obscure firm that just happens to have paid Donald Trump Jr. millions as an “advisor.”
The New York Times describes the setup:
Unusual Machines gave Donald Trump Jr. 200,000 shares of its stock late last year in return for his help as an adviser. The shares are now worth about $2.6 million. Though officials at the company and the Pentagon say Mr. Trump’s son has not reached out to the Defense Department on their behalf, he has relationships with some high-level figures there. …
Don Jr., as he is broadly known, through these two defense contractors and others he is investing in, has become part of the famed Beltway military-industrial complex, even as his father is setting policy priorities that are likely to benefit the companies he has invested in. …
[T]he Army’s 101st Airborne Division announced it intended to buy 3,500 drone engines from Unusual Machines—its first major direct order from the Pentagon. The Army indicated it could order another 20,000 parts next year, even though the company started manufacturing its own drone motors in the United States only in recent weeks. …
Donald Trump Jr.’s stock holdings in Unusual Machines are just one example on a growing list of financial ties that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s second son, have to companies that are selling products to the federal government or rely on it for regulatory approvals needed to increase their sales.
Corruption has a dual role in an authoritarian system, as both an end and a means. On the one hand, funneling money to insiders, and letting every business know they need to have a regime sponsor, is a tool for consolidating power. On the other hand, enriching insiders is one of the main reason the regime seeks power in the first place.
Oct. 24, 2025
Ignoring Congress, Trump Illegally and Unconstitutionally Diverts R&D Defense Funds to Pay Troops During the Shutdown
Category: Policy Illegality
Donald Trump has used the shutdown as an experiment in whether he can refuse to negotiate with the legislature, pretend that the Congress doesn’t exist, and govern without it. How he is doing that specifically is by illegally using federal funds appropriated for other purposes to perform essential functions like paying the U.S. military.
Lawfare provides an explainer on the legal issues:
To make these payments, President Trump used research and development (R&D) money that the Department of Defense had left over from last fiscal year—an action that was patently illegal. …
Taken together with impoundments—where the president illegally chooses not to spend money he’s legally required to spend—the president is now violating spending law on both ends of the spectrum: He is not spending money he doesn’t want to spend while also spending money for unauthorized purposes. …
Let’s start with the Constitution. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, is often known as the Appropriations Clause. It says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” …
In plain terms, the federal government can’t spend money on something unless Congress has provided money for that specific purpose. The Antideficiency Act and the purpose statute are laws that enshrine this prohibition into the U.S. Code. Under the Antideficiency Act, the federal government can’t spend money without an appropriation enacted into law and an apportionment (explained below) of the appropriated funds by the president’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Under the purpose statute, it can’t spend the money it does have for any purpose not specifically allowed in the authorization law and the appropriation made for the budget account(s) that funds that authorized purpose.
When President Trump used money authorized only for the purpose of supporting R&D to instead pay the troops, he used existing money for a purpose not allowed by that appropriation. He also spent money to pay the troops when he didn’t have an appropriation usable for that purpose.
There is no more elemental question in government than “Who pays the men with guns?” Because this is who those men ultimately serve and who gives them orders. In the American system, the answer is that the people pay the men with guns, and Congress represents the people. In Trump’s America, the answer is increasingly different.
Oct. 24, 2025
Trump Hits Up a Rich Crony to Illegally Pay Troops During the Shutdown and Diss Congress
Category: Policy Illegality
Rather than negotiating with Congress over continued government funding, Donald Trump is trying to run the government entirely without the authorization of Congress. Yet another way he is doing that is by taking money from an anonymous private donor (later identified as banking heir Timothy Mellon) to meet payroll for the U.S. military.
CNN reports:
The Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown, the Defense Department confirmed on Friday. …
The $130 million donation is unlikely to make any meaningful impact toward covering salaries of the roughly 1.3 million active duty military troops, netting out to about $100 per service member. …
Democrats also raised concerns about its legality, contending that the gift acceptance authority cited by the Pentagon only permits gifts for a handful of specific purposes—such as funding military schools, hospitals, cemeteries or to benefit wounded troops or the dependents of those injured or killed in the line of duty. Donations can also face additional, tighter restrictions if they come from foreign governments or organizations. …
Budget experts also questioned whether using the donation to pay military members runs afoul of the Antideficiency Act, which forbids federal agencies from using federal funds that exceed what have been allocated to them. Democrats have accused the administration of violating that law multiple times during the shutdown, including in its decision to fire thousands of federal workers.
“The Antideficiency Act is explicit that private donations cannot be used to offset a lapse in appropriations,” said Bill Hoagland, a former Senate GOP budget aide who is currently a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
This isn’t about money, it’s about control. Again, in a free society, the men with guns are paid by the people, and the people are represented by Congress. This ensures that the men with guns work for the people and answer to Congress. In a dictatorship, the men with guns are the private mercenaries of the leader and his cronies.
Oct. 23, 2025
A Crypto Conman Whose Platform Helped Hamas Launder Money Receives a Full Pardon After Investing in Trump’s Crypto Fund
Category: Personal Grift
One of the most flagrant abuses of Trump’s second term is his more or less open sale of pardons to those who enrich him and his family. Early this year, Executive Watch noted the Trump family’s deal with Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange whose Chinese founder Changpeng Zhao was lobbying for a Trump pardon. Now Trump has delivered on his end of the deal.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, wiping away one of the U.S. government’s most significant crackdowns on crypto crime.
Mr. Zhao had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023 and served four months in federal prison, after a yearslong investigation by financial regulators and U.S. prosecutors. …
To seek the pardon, Mr. Zhao hired lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration, while Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up.
That deal alone is poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president’s top Middle East adviser. …
Long considered the crypto industry’s richest man, Mr. Zhao—a Chinese-born executive who now lives in the United Arab Emirates—admitted that he had violated the law by failing to install rigorous compliance systems at Binance. That allowed people in countries under sanctions, and terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State, to move money on his platform.
This is typical of Trump’s pay-to-play presidency. Writing an op-ed critical of Israel can get you branded as a supporter of Hamas and rounded up by government goons. But funnel enough money to the Trump family and you can get a free pass for helping terrorists launder money.
Oct. 21, 2025
Trump Demolishes the East Wing of the People’s House Without Any Public Review to Build a Ballroom
Category: Policy Illegality
The coverage of Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House has generally been vague and evasive about the legality of the actions. But a Washington Post report provides a little more detail about the illegality of this process:
Photos of construction teams knocking down parts of the East Wing, first revealed by The Washington Post on Monday, shocked preservationists, raised questions about White House overreach and lack of transparency, and sparked complaints from Democrats that President Donald Trump was damaging “the People’s House” to pursue a personal priority. …
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, sent a letter Tuesday to administration officials, warning that the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which is about 55,000 square feet.
“We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” Carol Quillen, National Trust’s CEO, said in a statement, citing two federal commissions that have traditionally reviewed White House additions.
This, plus Trump’s grandiose plan for an imperial triumphal arch, raises a fundamental question: Who owns the White House? Who owns and controls the Capitol, the Mall, and other federal property in D.C.? Obviously, the answer is: the people do. Neither the White House nor the presidency is any one man’s personal property, to be disposed of however he wishes.
That Trump treats it this way is not the worst abuse of power in his administration—but it is a highly visible symbol of his assertion of absolute, unchecked power.
Oct. 21, 2025
Trump Plots to Loot the U.S. Treasury for $230 Million for Trying to Hold Him Accountable to the Rule of Law
Category: Personal Grift
Donald Trump plans to loot the U.S. Treasury for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars by ordering his subordinate to settle a frivolous claim that he himself filed against the federal government, demanding compensation because it investigated him for crimes for which there was ample evidence.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit. …
Asked about the issue at the White House after this article published, the president said, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”
He added, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” …
“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right? So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.” …
According to the Justice Department manual, settlements of claims against the department for more than $4 million “must be approved by the deputy attorney general or associate attorney general,” meaning the person who oversees the agency’s civil division.
The current deputy attorney general, Mr. Blanche, served as Mr. Trump’s lead criminal defense lawyer and said at his confirmation hearing in February that his attorney-client relationship with the president continued. The chief of the department’s civil division, Stanley Woodward Jr., represented Mr. Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case.
The kicker in this article is when a Justice Department spokesman assures us that “officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials.” But then the Times points out: “In July, [Attorney General Pam] Bondi fired the agency’s top ethics adviser.” That sums up this administration’s attitude on ethics.
Oct. 21, 2025
Trump Commutes the Sentence of Disgraced Congressman Santos Because He Is ‘100% for Trump’
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump has a history of giving pardons to people who pay him money—but also sometimes just to conmen and frauds whom he clearly sees as kindred spirits. That would seem to cover disgraced former Congressman George Santos, whose sentence Trump just commuted.
The Guardian leads with Santos’ most extravagant offense: stealing money raised to provide care for a veteran’s dying service dog. It then provides the rest of the context:
Santos made history in 2022 as the first out LGBTQ+ Republican elected to Congress. He was later exposed for having lied prolifically about his biography, and a House ethics committee detailed how Santos used campaign funds for personal travel, cosmetic treatments and luxury goods.
He ultimately was expelled from Congress, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft, reported to a federal prison in New Jersey in July, and served three months of the sentence given to him before Trump commuted the punishment on Friday. The commutation from Trump—who won a second presidency in 2024 despite a criminal conviction of falsifying business records—set the stage for Santos to be released from prison on Saturday.
“He lied like hell,” Trump said of his fellow Republican to Newsmax. “But he was 100% for Trump.” …
[Santos] said on Sunday’s edition of the Fox & Friends Weekend program that he no longer had to pay the nearly $375,000 in restitution that—along with $205,000 in forfeiture—he agreed to when he pleaded guilty.
He lied, but he supported Trump. That sums up the gratuitous corruption of this administration.
Oct. 15, 2025
Hegseth Restricts Defense Personnel From Interacting With Congress to Make Oversight Harder
Category: Power Consolidation
Fresh off an apparently successful plan to dissolve the Pentagon press corps and replace it with a more pliable one, prompted in part by a general paranoia over leaks, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is now plotting to restrict the flow of information to Congress.
Breaking Defense has the scoop:
Defense Department personnel will now have to coordinate all interactions with Congress through the Pentagon’s central legislative affairs office, according to a memo obtained by Breaking Defense—a change in policy that could further curb the flow of information streaming from the department to Capitol Hill.
In the Oct. 15 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg direct Defense Department personnel—with the exception of the Pentagon’s inspector general office—to coordinate with the office of the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs for all engagements and communication with Congress and state elected officials. …
“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by DoW personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” Hegseth and Feinberg wrote later in the memo. …
The directive is a shift from previous policy, which allowed the military services, combatant commands and other Defense Department agencies to manage their own interactions with Congress—with senior leaders for those organizations often driving the level of engagement on Capitol Hill and each service having its own legislative affairs team.
Rep. George Whitesides, D-Calif, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Breaking Defense that the move is unlikely to be received well on Capitol Hill.
“Congress decides who Congress will talk to, and the continued efforts of the secretary to wall off the department is not consistent with past tradition, and I frankly don’t think it’ll fly with the members or leaders of the committee,” he said.
“Congress decides who Congress will talk to” really sums it up. This is part of a wider attempt to eliminate all outside checks on executive power. A crucial step toward that goal is to restrict Congress’s sources of information about what the Department of Defense is doing.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Is it only Republicans, or is it just Trump that is grifting off of his time in office?
I can't respect ANYBODY who points their finger from one side of the street, but can't take accountability for their own side.
Biden, Pelosi, and nearly every other person in office grifts in any way they can. Just look at the evidence emerging from the money these grifters make using insider trading and it's been a well kept secret for YEARS.
If Liberals can't keep their own side accountable and honest, calling out only the other side makes Liberals sound disingenuous, and worse, sounding like a Cult that can do no wrong.
And this is probably the biggest difference between politics now and 50 years ago. Literally nobody is accountable any longer to anyone.
Where was the concern about authoritarianism when Obama was threatening us with his "pen and phone" and when his Justice Department and IRS were going after conservatives (not just Trump?). And who watched after grift as Hunter Biden and his family (including The Big Guy) made millions from foreign governments and their surrogate corporations. Or when the Obamas went from claiming to be modest Chicagoans who used to date in a "hoopdie" to owners of multiple million dollar mansions on a nice but still not spectacular government salary. (Please don't give me the "book royalties" line-- everyone knows he didn't write those or else he would be vying with Richard Nixon for most post-presidential tomes)