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.

Vice President JD Vance on Monday urged his supporters to snitch on workers who make offensive remarks about the late MAGA provocateur and podcaster Charlie Kirk.

In recent days, an error-ridden doxing campaign, led by right-wing figures like Trump ally Laura Loomer and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, began targeting people accused of publishing unsavory posts online about Kirk following his fatal shooting last week.

The vice president endorsed this censorial campaign as the guest host of Monday’s episode of The Charlie Kirk Show.

“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out, and, hell, call their employer,” the vice president urged his listeners. “We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility. And there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”

The campaign Vance effectively co-signed has already caused innumerable people to be doxed, threatened, and professionally punished or fired for their speech—including many who were simply critical of Kirk’s often extreme views and some who were accused of glorifying his death despite having never commented on the matter at all.

Earlier in the broadcast, Vance had on White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who condemned “organized doxing campaigns” against conservatives, which he claimed were part of a supposed “organized campaign that led to [Kirk’s] assassination.”

MAGA has undertaken a doxing spree in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, targeting social media users who belittle the far right-wing activist—and even some who didn’t.

Taylor Lorenz’s User Mag reported Monday that an I.T. technician at Walmart had been wrongly linked to a social media account by doxers.

Ali Nasrati, 30, said he hadn’t posted anything about Kirk but was still publicly doxed over an account using his name and photograph that made posts mocking the right-wing activist, User Mag reported. This set off a tidal wave of threatening messages and phone calls, sending his mother and sister fleeing from their home and resulting in Nasrati getting suspended (with pay) from his job.

Other instances of doxing appear to have been prompted by unverified information. Ryan Fournier, the national chair of Students for Trump, was forced to walk back accusations of anti-Kirk comments against an elementary school teacher in Wisconsin. “Moving forward, we ask that all tips include as many details as possible—along with screenshots and supporting evidence. We must continue exposing individuals mocking Charlie Kirk’s death, but accuracy is critical,” he wrote on X.

On Sunday night, an anonymous website collecting reports of anti-Kirk “political extremism” said it had received more than 63,000 submissions. A disclaimer on the website, originally named “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” but rebranded Monday as the “Charlie Kirk Data Foundation,” claimed that it was “not a doxxing website.”

“We lawfully collect publicly-available data to analyze the prominence of support for political violence in the interest of public education,” the statement said. “We do not publish data which identifies individuals.”

Wired previously reported that the operators of Charlie’s Murderers were collecting reports of social media users celebrating or mocking Kirk’s death, and revealing their personal information.

To be clear, one doesn’t need to have mocked Kirk to land on the doxers’ list of offenders. All you need to do is acknowledge Kirk’s actual politics, and his legacy as a far-right Christian nationalist with a history of making racist, misogynist, and homophobic remarks.

“When they call Charlie Kirk a ‘Nazi’ or a ‘White Nationalist’ they mean all 77 million Americans who voted for Trump. They mean you,” the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation posted on X. “They think there’s a moral duty to kill these ‘Nazis.’ That means they want to kill you the same way they killed Charlie. Never forget that.”

Other far-right influencers posting people’s personal information on the internet include Laura Loomer and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. “THIS IS WAR,” Raichik declared Wednesday afternoon, before any authorities had any information about the identity of the alleged shooter.

If memes are any indication, the right-wing movement to oust private citizens over their remarks about Kirk may have been democratized. “Waiting for your arch nemesis at work to tweet something negative about Charlie Kirk so you can report them to HR and get them fired,” was the caption to one meme on Instagram shared by two popular meme accounts.

The Trump administration has spent at least $56,000 so far on Orwellian banners displayed on government buildings, according to a report from Democratic Senator Adam Schiff published by MeidasTouch Network.

In August, Trump’s Department of Labor unfurled a giant banner on its headquarters’ facade, featuring the words “American Workers First” and Trump’s glowering second inaugural portrait. Alongside the president’s banner was one depicting Theodore Roosevelt with the same motto. In the spring, Trump’s visage similarly appeared on a banner beside one of Abraham Lincoln on the Department of Agriculture’s building.

An oversight report by Schiff reveals that the Department of Health and Human Services also plans to exhibit political banners on its exterior. The Trump administration has awarded a contract for two “Make America Healthy Again Building Banners” at HHS headquarters, which are yet to be unveiled. Per contracting documents, the signs are to measure 11 feet by 88 feet and be made to last “preferably” the length of Trump’s term. While they will feature “different artwork,” the images are not detailed in the report—but if history is any indication, one of them can be expected to depict the president scowling.

Between all three reported banner orders, the Trump administration has dished out about $56,000 in taxpayer money. The USDA banners cost $16,400, the HHS banners $33,726, and the Labor Department banners about $6,000—though, Schiff notes, the full cost is “yet to be determined.”

According to Schiff, the banners could run afoul of federal appropriations laws that bar the spending of funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” Either way, as the senator notes, they serve as “a stark visual manifestation of measures President Trump and his administration are taking to consolidate power and control that are antithetical to American democracy.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller just made it his mission to go after liberal nonprofits.

Speaking with Vice President JD Vance Monday during a tribute to Charlie Kirk on the far-right firebrand’s eponymous show, Miller said that he intended to “channel all the anger that we have” against the left, claiming that leftist groups and nonprofits had created “terrorist networks” that led to Kirk’s murder.

“The last message that Charlie sent me … was that we needed to have an organized strategy to go after the left-leaning organizations that are promoting violence in this country,” Miller told Vance, celebrating what he described as focused anger. “I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out.”

Miller elaborated that, per his belief, these supposed terrorist organizations had produced “organized doxing campaigns” and “organized cells” that facilitated violence.

“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said. “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.

“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller added.

Kirk was shot dead during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University Wednesday. He was struck by a single bullet to the neck, pulverizing his carotid artery.

But details surrounding Kirk’s murder—and his suspected killer—don’t point to the ideological left, as Miller would apparently like people to believe. Instead, the suspect in custody, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, came from a MAGA family, his grandmother told The Daily Beast. Robinson, who hailed from a conservative Mormon family in southwestern Utah, was registered as a nonpartisan voter, according to public records.

Etchings found on bullet casings allegedly belonging to Robinson similarly did not paint the suspect as a liberal. Instead, the writings made references to video games such as Helldivers 2, and echoed 4chan copypastas.

Hardline MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a “national divorce,” in a psychotic, inaccuracy-laden post about “the left” and Charlie Kirk. 

“There is nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us. They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them peacefully debating ideas. Then millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead,” Taylor Greene wrote on X on Monday. “To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us. What will come from Charlie Kirk being martyred is already happening. It is a spiritual revival building the kingdom for Christ.” 

https://x.com/RepMTG/status/1967550436337996189

There’s been a concerted effort on the right to cast Kirk’s shooting as some coordinated leftist attack. Some like Elon Musk are even calling it the work of a transgender terrorist cell. Multiple figures both in and out of government have called for “war” against this anonymous idea they have of the left, when in reality the suspect’s politics are enigmatic at best. Still, they are using Kirk’s assassination to further their own far-right agendas. MTG is doing the exact same, as she is literally calling for a civil dissolution of the United States over this, all while evoking the name of Jesus.   

“Democrats are hardened in their beliefs and will flip the switch back as soon as they have power. And, if you are expecting Republicans to fight against evil, with the power they currently possess, and end this once and for all, you are going to be extremely disappointed. This week Congress will be voting on another CR—Biden’s budget that FUNDS TRANSGENDER POLICIES, NOT our own Trump policy budget that funds what you voted for,” Taylor Greene continued. “Government is not answer, God is. Turn your full faith and trust to our Almighty God and our Savior Jesus. Tighten your circle around your family and protect them at all times. I will pray for the left, but personally I want nothing to do with them.”

While this is far from MTG’s most troubling post, the greater trend it highlights is indeed worrisome. The right’s attempt to whitewash Kirk’s legacy, declare war on the ambiguous “left” before any motive has been confirmed, and act as if political violence (or jokes about it) is unique to the left is an insult to the intelligence of their own supporters.