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Research Exposes Trump Inaugural Committee as ‘Cesspool of Special Interest Financing’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), President-elect Donald Trump, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Vice President-elect JD Vance attend the Army-Navy football game at Northwest Stadium on December 14, 2024 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“The record-shattering abuses of the 2025 Trump-Vance Presidential Inaugural Committee, Inc. should signal the immediate need for legislation to prevent this influence peddling,” said one ethics expert.

With Inauguration Day less than a week away, a watchdog group on Tuesday published research shining light on the unprecedented level of financial support President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund has received from corporations and executives seeking to court favor with the incoming administration.

The new research from Public Citizen includes a tracker that lists known corporate donations or pledged contributions to Trump’s inaugural committee, which is tax-exempt and not subject to contribution limits.

Amazon, Apple, Chevron, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Google, Meta, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the pharmaceutical lobby, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Coinbase are among those that have pumped money into Trump’s inaugural fund, which has raked in a record-shattering $150 million since Election Day—and could bring in over $200 million by January 20.

“These million-dollar donors come from a small class of very wealthy industries in Big Tech, cryptocurrency, government contractors, and others with lucrative contracts or business pending before the federal government,” Public Citizen found. “Some of the biggest donors had long been critics of Trump, especially following the January 6 Insurrection by Trump supporters, and who are now fearful of retributions by a vengeful president.”

Some of the companies that have donated to the inaugural fund are also facing federal investigations, amplifying suspicions that the contributions were made with the goal of receiving favorable treatment from the next administration.

“The record-breaking cesspool of special interest financing for the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee raises serious concerns about the ability of corporations and wealthy special interests to purchase influence over public policy or lucrative government contracts,” Craig Holman, a government ethics expert at Public Citizen, said in a statement Tuesday.“The record-shattering abuses of the 2025 Trump-Vance Presidential Inaugural Committee, Inc. should signal the immediate need for legislation to prevent this influence peddling.”

“The possibility for corruption exists any time an officeholder accepts large donations from those who have business pending before the official.”

Trump’s inaugural fund has easily surpassed the then-record-setting $107 million he raised for his inauguration in 2017, The New York Times reported earlier this month. On Monday, the Times reported that “Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who helped bankroll Donald J. Trump’s campaign and stands to profit from his energy policies, is hosting an exclusive fossil fuel industry celebration on Inauguration Day.”

“Among the invited guests to Mr. Hamm’s celebration is Doug Burgum, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the Interior Department,” according to the newspaper.

The president-elect has openly boasted that prominent figures in corporate America—from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—have lined up to show support for his second administration, which is set to be packed with billionaires and others with close business ties. Trump is reportedly keeping close track of major companies that have yet to donate to his inaugural fund.

Public Citizen noted Tuesday that “while the self-serving motivations of inaugural donors has a long and troubling precedent, the scope of donations and, in many cases, the fear of retribution driving the donations to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee represents a worrying shift.”

“Buying access to the president and the president’s inner circle is the name of the game,” the group says in its new research brief. “For corporations and wealthy special interests attempting to influence public policy or secure lucrative government contracts, writing big checks to Trump’s inaugural committee—or any presidential inaugural committee—provides a bonanza of access to leading government officials and influence over public policy. This is a level of influence peddling only available to those who can afford to pay the price and is denied to those who are not wealthy.”

To “ensure that undue influence-peddling through Inaugural donations is mitigated,” Public Citizen called on lawmakers to pass legislation banning corporate and lobbyist donations to inaugural funds, implementing contribution limits, and strengthening disclosure requirements, among other reforms.

“The possibility for corruption exists any time an officeholder accepts large donations from those who have business pending before the official,” Public Citizen said. “Congress should end the double standard for presidential inauguration fundraising. The celebration of an election victory should be viewed as part and parcel of the process of selecting our president.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingResearch Exposes Trump Inaugural Committee as ‘Cesspool of Special Interest Financing’

Crypto Billionaire Trump Already ‘Cashing In On the Presidency’ With Meme Coin

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A smartphone displays a post from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Truth account announcing the $TRUMP meme coin on January 19, 2025. (Photo: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“We now have a president-elect who, the weekend before inauguration, is launching new businesses along with promises to deregulate… those sectors in a way to just blatantly profit off his own presidency.”

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump faced a flood of criticism throughout the weekend for launching a cryptocurrency token as the world prepared for his Monday inauguration and policies expected to benefit the industry that helped Republicans take control of the White House and Congress.

“It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office,” Campaign Legal Center executive director Adav Noti told The New York Times. “It is beyond unprecedented.”

Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also contrasted Trump’s move with behaviors of past presidents, telling Politico, “It is absolutely wild.”

“After decades of seeing presidents-elect spend the time leading up to inauguration separating themselves from their finances to show that they don’t have any conflicts of interest, we now have a president-elect who, the weekend before inauguration, is launching new businesses along with promises to deregulate… those sectors in a way to just blatantly profit off his own presidency,” said Libowitz.

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1881005512747352434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1881005512747352434%7Ctwgr%5E5d0187f964e4802a668c879d924cde5449ffac86%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Ftrump-crypto

The president-elected announced the $TRUMP meme coin, hosted on the Solana blockchain, via his Truth social media platform and X—owned by Elon Musk, his ally and the richest person on the planet—on Friday, declaring that “it’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”

He linked to a website that explains “there are 200 million $TRUMP available on day one and will grow to a total of 1 billion $TRUMP over three years.” It also states that “Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP’ and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.”

Forbes reported that “the remaining 80% of tokens that have yet to be publicly released are owned by the Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware on January 7, according to state filings, and both companies will receive an undisclosed amount of revenue derived from trading activity.”

The president-elect’s son Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization, told the Times that “this is just the beginning.”

“I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto,” he said in a statement. “$TRUMP is currently the hottest digital meme on Earth.”

In an article simply headlined, “Donald Trump, crypto billionaire,” Axios noted that by Sunday morning, “Trump’s crypto holdings were worth as much as $58 billion on paper, enough—with his other assets—to make him one of the world’s 25 richest people.”

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1881043436226171104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1881043436226171104%7Ctwgr%5E5d0187f964e4802a668c879d924cde5449ffac86%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Ftrump-crypto

Responding to Axios‘ report, Wa’el Alzayat, who served as a Middle East policy expert at the U.S. Department of State for a decade, said that “when I was in government I couldn’t accept a lunch over $20. Now anyone can give our next president millions.”

Predicting that “this is going to end VERY badly for everyone except Donald Trump and his cronies,” journalist Jeff St. John said that “it is a scandal and an outrage.”

The meme coin announcement came as “the elite of the crypto world” gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first-ever Crypto Ball.

The president-elect did not attend the event, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the nominees for commerce and treasury secretary, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent, were there. Reporting on the gala, Reuters pointed out that the Trump “courted crypto campaign cash with promises to be a ‘crypto president,’ and is expected next week to issue executive orders aimed at reducing crypto regulatory roadblocks and promoting widespread adoption of digital assets.”

Trump is no stranger to ethics scandals. As Mother Jones detailed:

The meme coin is just the latest in a bizarre line of grifty, super-weird takes on “merch.” Last February, Trump showed off gold “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 at Sneaker Con, which had Fox News applauding his appeal to Black voters. In March, he began endorsing the $59.99 “God Bless the USA Bible,” which includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” (Trump’s inaugural committee has confirmed that he will not be using one of these Bibles to swear the presidential oath of office on Monday.) In August, Trump released a new round of his “baseball card” NFTs.

S.V. Dáte, a senior White House correspondent at HuffPost, highlighted Sunday that during the Republican’s first term, “Trump’s D.C. hotel was a convenient way for foreign and domestic lobbyists to put cash directly into his pocket.”

“This crypto thing is next level. Anyone on the planet can put money directly into his pocket. Huge,” Dáte added. “The efficiency here is a thing of beauty. With a hotel, you have all the costs of owning the property as well as paying cleaning staff, front desk staff, and so on. This selling of fake money is almost pure profit.”

The Trump Organization sold the D.C. hotel in 2022, but The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that his “real estate company is in talks to reclaim” the property.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingCrypto Billionaire Trump Already ‘Cashing In On the Presidency’ With Meme Coin

‘The rich are on course to destroy all our lives’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/the-rich-are-on-course-to-destroy-all-our-lives

A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire as it burns a structure in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles, January 7, 2025

World’s wealthiest 1% have already burned through their share of the entire annual carbon limit, Oxfam warns

THE world’s wealthiest 1 per cent have already burned through their share of the entire annual carbon limit, a damning analysis of super-rich climate destruction has revealed.

A new study by charity Oxfam has analysed the “global carbon budget” — the amount of CO2 that can be emitted without exceeding the international target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Its findings showed that while the richest capitalists had already exceeded that limit in the first 10 days of 2025, it would take someone from the poorest half of the global population nearly three years to use up their share.

Inaction will continue to have deadly consequences, the charity said — and eight in 10 deaths from heat will occur in low and lower-middle-income countries.

Oxfam estimated that by 2050, emissions by the 1 per cent will cause crop losses that could have provided enough calories to feed at least 10 million people a year in eastern and southern Asia.

Emissions from the ultra-wealthy are also causing trillions in economic losses -– the impact on low and lower-middle-income countries over the past three decades has been three times greater than the total climate finance provided by wealthy nations.

…

A spokesperson for Just Stop Oil also issued a rallying call, saying: “We live within a system that serves the few over the many, and the rich are on course for destroying all our lives if they carry on unopposed. We must get organised and resist.

“We need a revolution in politics and economics, and we need to reclaim Parliament from the corporations and billionaires, whilst prioritising the interests of ordinary people.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/the-rich-are-on-course-to-destroy-all-our-lives

Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Continue Reading‘The rich are on course to destroy all our lives’

Facebook Follows X Down Path to Becoming Right-Wing ‘Cesspool’ by Ending Fact-Checking Efforts

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg is seen during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with representatives of social media companies at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Zuck isn’t just kissing the ring, he’s slobbering all over it,” said one media reporter.

In a move that some viewed as a means of currying favor with the incoming Trump administration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a video Tuesday that the company is moving to end its third party fact-checking program.

Instead, the company will use a community notes approach, inspired by the Elon Musk’s platform X—where Musk’s misleading claims about the 2024 presidential election racked up billions of views.

Zuckerberg’s announcement was accompanied by a post authored by Meta’s new, “Trump-friendly” chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, who described the change as “more speech and fewer mistakes.” Kaplan also went on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning to discuss the update.

“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” wrote Kaplan in his post. Kaplan and Zuckerberg also noted that Meta plans to phase back in more civic content, as in posts about elections, politics, or social issues.

Real Facebook Oversight Board (RFOB), a group established to counter the perceived failures of Meta’s own oversight board, blasted the move, saying, “‘censorship’ is a manufactured crisis, political pandering to signal that Meta’s platforms are open for business to far-right propaganda.”

“Twitter’s shift from fact checking has turned the platform into a cesspool; Zuck is joining them in a race to the bottom,” the group wrote Tuesday.

The move generated other negative reactions.

“Meta went to Fox News to announce it’s ending its third-party fact checking program. Zuck isn’t just kissing the ring, he’s slobbering all over it,” wrote media reporter Oliver Darcy on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, Kara Swisher, a tech journalist, wrote “toxic floods of lies on social media platforms like Facebook have destroyed trust not fact checkers. Let me reiterate: Mark Zuckerberg has never cared about that and never will.”

Co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, Lisa Gilbert, weighed in, saying that “misinformation will flow more freely with this policy change, as we cannot assume that corrections will be made when false information proliferates. The American people deserve accurate information about our elections, health risks, the environment, and much more. We condemn this irresponsible move and the harm it will likely contribute to our discourse.”

“Meta’s new promise to scale back fact checking isn’t surprising—Zuckerberg is one of many billionaires who are cozying up to dangerous demagogues like Trump and pushing initiatives that favor their bottom lines at the expense of everything and everyone else,” wrote Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights for the organization Free Press in a Tuesday statement.

Meta, which is angling for the U.S. government to use its AI and is facing an federal antitrust trial this spring, has made other bids to enter Trump’s good graces and thaw once frosty relations (Meta temporarily booted Trump from its platforms following his comments regarding the January 6 insurrection). Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund recently and Zuckerberg flew down to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Club to meet with him this past fall.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingFacebook Follows X Down Path to Becoming Right-Wing ‘Cesspool’ by Ending Fact-Checking Efforts