Trump’s Biggest Corruption Scandal Isn’t Getting Enough Attention

A New York Times exposé published Monday tells the tale of two back-to-back deals that enriched three powerful families: the Trumps, the Witkoffs (as in Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff), and the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates.

In one deal, announced in May, a firm of Emirati royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan invested $2 billion in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump and Witkoff families—which consequently became among the most prominent crypto firms overnight.

In the other, negotiated “at the same time and by some of the same people,” the White House two weeks later agreed to sell the UAE hundreds of thousands of the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence chips, despite national security concerns.

The Times revealed that some officials in the Trump administration were wary about the chip deal due to UAE-China ties. But a key dissenter at the National Security Council, David Feith, was taken out of the equation when MAGA provocateur Laura Loomer questioned his (and five other NSC members’) loyalty, leading to their removal by the president. Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto czar, then took a leading role in the negotiations—and received a White House ethics waiver in order to do so.

While the Times reports that there is no evidence that the two deals constituted an explicit quid pro quo—and the White House, and those involved, maintains they were not linked—they do “violate longstanding norms in the United States for political, diplomatic and private deal-making among senior officials and their children,” according to ethics lawyers cited in the report.

On Bluesky, economist Ryan Cummings, who served on President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, wrote that the deals, if linked, would represent, by far, “the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States”—amounting to a $2 billion bribe, whereas the most comparable incident, the Harding administration’s Teapot Dome scandal, involved bribes amounting to about $10 million in today’s dollars, he said.

Dan Nexon, a political scientist at Georgetown University, observed that the report reveals how “U.S. foreign policy is much easier to understand once you accept that the main ‘grand strategy’ of the Trump administration is straight-up kleptocracy.”

“The Trump Administration is cashing in on foreign crypto deals—and weakening guardrails that protect our advanced technology,” wrote Senator Elizabeth Warren on X. “We should not pass any crypto legislation without shutting this down.”

President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi want to “Make Memphis Great Again.”

On Monday, the president signed a presidential memorandum to establish the “Memphis Safe Task Force,” delivering on weeks of threats to send federally controlled law enforcement into the Blackest city in America. The National Guard, FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Marshals will all be present.

Trump used a perceived crime wave as justification for the memorandum, a move similar to his federal takeover of D.C. last month.

“A person is four times more likely to be murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, today than in Mexico City. And you know Mexico City is not a cakewalk,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s been overrun with carjackings, robberies, shootings, and killings … so we’re not gonna allow this kind of savagery to destroy our society anymore. We’re stopping it.”

Trump also reaffirmed that he was still planning the same operation in Chicago, although he noted that the administration would wait a bit, perhaps to prepare legal defenses to the lawsuit that would surely come from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

Trump’s attack on Memphis—along with his threats to Chicago and Baltimore—reaffirms his aggressiveness toward Democratic, majority-Black cities with Black leaders.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young has already made his disapproval of the president’s decision clear.

“It’s not something that I believe is going to reduce crime in our city. I think that the way to reduce crime is to invest in the things that are going to intervene and prevent crime in the first place,” Young told the Reverend Al Sharpton Sunday on MSNBC.

This story has been updated.

The White House’s account of Israel’s attack on Qatar is no longer adding up.

Israeli officials revealed that Donald Trump was informed as early as Tuesday morning that Israel intended to attack senior Hamas leaders in Qatar, reported Axios.

The new intel, reported Monday, contradicts the Trump administration’s narrative. Last week, the White House said that it had only been made aware of the impending bombing after missiles were already in the air. But at least seven Israeli officials rejected that, stating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had relayed the details to the U.S. president before Israel conducted the air strike.

But the White House stuck to its guns when confronted, denying that it was aware of the situation prior to Israel’s assault.

“As President Trump stated, the U.S. Military informed him of Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, and he immediately directed his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to inform Qatar,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios.

Qatar and the United States are strategic allies: The Biden administration deemed Qatar to be a major non-NATO ally in 2022. But the Gulf nation’s attempts to sidle up to Washington became more brazen after Trump returned to office.

Just months ago, Qatar solidified a deal with the Trump Organization to build a Trump-branded golf course and a beachside project as part of a $5.5 billion development project. The tiny nation also bestowed a wildly controversial super-luxury jumbo jet to Trump, all in an apparent attempt to shore up its relationship with America’s notoriously flighty leader.

But America’s failure to take action to stop Israel’s attack has left those in the Qatari capital with a sense of shock and betrayal, according to CNN. Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani had agreed to act as a mediator to end the war between Israel and Gaza. How Qatar intends to move forward navigating the enormous tension between the two regions—without the promise of protection by the U.S.—is unclear.

In an interview with CNN last week, the Qatari prime minister referred to Israel’s attack as “state terror.” He condemned Netanyahu and his actions, arguing that the Israeli leader had broken “every international law” and must be “brought to justice.”

He further stated that Netanyahu had “killed any hope” for the hostages and undermined “any chance of peace.”

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how much damage has been done to America’s other alliances in the Middle East. Allied nations that witnessed the attack may well determine the need to pivot away from their U.S. connections.

“I think those nations will be wondering what they can do in order to deter future attacks,” HA Hellyer, senior fellow in Middle East studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, told CNN. “But also, what sort of security architecture they need to now invest in instead of relying on a partner that hasn’t been able to protect them even from one of its own allies.”

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he’d made yet another deadly (and potentially extrajudicial) military strike against a vessel of suspected drug traffickers.

“This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon.

“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S,” Trump wrote. These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”

“BE WARNED—IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!” Trump warned. “The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER.”

Trump claimed that the three “narcoterrorists” killed in the strike had been Venezuelan, but did not say what criminal cartel they were allegedly affiliated with. The president also included a strangely edited “unclassified” video of the vessel being struck and exploding into fire and smoke.

It’s unclear how many missiles were fired, or whether anything else was struck.

While speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump wouldn’t say whether he had plans to strike mainland Venezuela, after promising a broadening campaign against Venezuelan cartels in the aftermath of an initial deadly strike earlier this month. The Trump administration has been widely criticized for violating domestic and international law by carrying out a military strike without proper legal authority.

Trump apparently misses his hunting license, and has once again used the U.S. military to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for those accused of trafficking drugs.

Crucially, Trump has been less than forthcoming about details of the previous strike. Trump officials switched up details about where the boat was headed, and while the president claims that the strike was an act of “self defense,” the boat had reportedly turned around by the time it was fired upon and struck multiple times.

Senator Rand Paul also revealed last week that the previous strike was carried out by drone, a blatant violation of the rules of engagement. It is possible that may have been the case again, as Trump noted that no U.S. forces were harmed during the latest operation.

Vice President JD Vance on Monday claimed it’s a “statistical fact” that the left commits more political violence.

“And while our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics on American politics today are proud members of the far left,” Vance said, while signing off on Charlie Kirk’s memorial podcast, which he hosted from the White House.

Vance’s statement is one of many incendiary assertions from the right that frame Kirk’s assassination as a sign of general left-wing extremism that ought to be destroyed, even as the suspect’s motives and politics remain unclear.

Moreover, Vance’s statement is not a “statistical fact.”

One study published by the libertarian Cato Institute found that since 2020, right-wingers have accounted for over half of terror-related deaths in the United States, with left-wingers at 22 percent. Another study from the Public Religion Research Institute found that those who were more opposed to Trump were more likely to oppose political violence as well.

“​​It is not a statistical fact at all,” podcaster Jon Favreau wrote on X. “I wouldn’t make an assertion like that about the right without evidence, and I’m just a podcaster not the Vice President of the United States. Incredibly irresponsible.”

There are countless examples of right-wing political violence that Vance, Trump, and many others on the right are simply gaslighting the public about at this point. From January 6 to the assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, to the school shooting that happened in Colorado the same day Charlie Kirk was killed, the right seems fully committed to pushing this lie.