Donald Trump’s giant gilded ballroom is a place where rich guys in tuxedos can flatter him and buy and sell special favors. This actually started before the ballroom has even been built, as giant companies with business before the administration give millions for the ballroom in order to buy Trump’s favor. The kicker is that Trump is also keeping these donors secret from the public.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump’s aides have promised transparency about the funding of a new ballroom, but the White House withheld the identities of several donors to the project, including some with business before the administration, The New York Times found.
A list released last month by the White House of more than three dozen donors omitted donation amounts, as well as the names of several individuals and companies that collectively have billions of dollars riding on the outcome of administration policy decisions. …
Among the donors not disclosed by the White House are a pair of health care companies seeking to protect or expand Medicare reimbursement for their products, as well as the Wall Street powerhouse BlackRock, whose bid to acquire a stake in Panama Canal ports has been supported by Mr. Trump amid opposition from China. Another is Jeff Yass, a major investor in TikTok’s parent company who could benefit from a Trump-backed deal to keep the social media app up and running in the United States.
Still others attended a dinner at the White House last month for donors who gave $2.5 million or more to build the ballroom, but their presences were not disclosed by the administration, and not all of them have…publicly acknowledged whether they donated.
The public listing of donors is a crucial curb for corruption, because it allows the public to connect presidential actions to the donations that motivated them. Under Trump, the White House has been literally up for sale, and he knows who its buyers are—but the American people are kept in the dark.
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.
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