We have an idea of President Donald Trump’s net worth, because he has to file an annual disclosure form with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
We know who the biggest donors have been to his presidential campaigns and the super PACs that support him, because they have to disclose their contributions and expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. And because he has used campaign funds to pay legal fees, rather than setting up a legal defense fund, we have some sense of how he has paid for attorneys to defend him in lawsuits.
In the coming weeks, we will get a full accounting of which corporations, special interests and individuals funded Trump’s second inauguration.
But during Trump’s first term in office, we didn’t know who was staying at his Washington hotel just blocks from the White House, or buying condominiums at Trump Las Vegas, or holding receptions at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., or at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. We also never saw his tax returns, breaking a decades-long precedent dating back to President Richard Nixon.
We still don’t have that information (though Trump sold the D.C. hotel in 2022). And now that Trump has returned to the White House, there is even more we do not know about the president’s financial dealings, such as the investors in his World Liberty Financial crypto project or the buyers of Trump meme coins, Trump-branded Bibles or Trump-branded sneakers.
That’s because Trump, unlike his predecessors, never divested from his businesses and instead has found more ways to make money while occupying the White House. Federal law requires senior government officials — except the president — to divest from business interests that may pose a conflict of interest.
“We start from the point of view that we should be concerned about this because he shouldn’t have kept ownership of his businesses,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, said no other president has ever had such an intermingling of personal and public business.
“We’ve seen President Trump and members of his family and close associates significantly profiting off the presidency in a way that’s unprecedented in American history,” he said. “These cryptocurrency and meme coins create a pathway … for foreign governments, for special interests, to ingratiate themselves with this administration.”
Bookbinder said someone doing business with Trump could reap benefits down the road.
Trump is involved in negotiations to end the schism between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia-based LIV Golf. The Trump Organization’s golf courses have hosted PGA and LIV tournaments, and a deal between the two organizations could mean millions of dollars for the president’s company, The New York Times reported.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president is not hiding information from the public.
“President Trump has been the most transparent president in history in all respects, including when it comes to his finances,” Leavitt said. “President Trump handed over his multibillion-dollar empire in order to serve our country, and he has sacrificed greatly. President Trump has disclosed his financial holdings through his annual financial disclosure report and he will continue to do so.”
While Trump’s disclosure form provides some insight into his earnings, investments and liabilities, officials report dollar figures in broad ranges — limiting the public’s insight.
“What you are going to see are the businesses he has a share in, you’re going to see properties that he owns, but you’re not going to see the next level,” Bookbinder said, referring to his companies’ financial holding and business arrangements.
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as President George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer, has highlighted problems with the existing disclosure requirements for years.
Painter, who testified on this issue before the House Oversight Committee in March 2017, said, “you’d like to know who powerful public officials, including presidents, are beholden to. You hope they would be only beholden to Americans. It’s why we have the Ethics in Government Act. If we can’t figure out who they’re beholden to, we’ve undermined the statute.”
Tax returns could provide some of that information, but they don’t have to be disclosed either. Trump has been the only president in decades not to voluntarily release them. The last Oval Office occupant who did not release a full tax return was Gerald Ford, who instead issued a tax summary.
The House Ways and Means Committee, then run by Democrats, went to the Supreme Court and won the right to obtain and release several years’ worth of Trump’s returns in 2022. The biggest takeaways were that he paid little or no taxes for several years because of deductions and losses, and that he reported income from almost two dozen foreign countries, including China. The release lacked details, but Trump owns golf courses and hotels around the world.
With Trump replacing people at the Justice Department and dismissing ethics officials and inspectors general, there are fewer people in place to make sure the forms are filled out and all the required information is disclosed to the public, Scherb said.
“While there are still significant disclosure requirements required of President Trump and many executive branch officials, if there’s no cop on the beat at any of these agencies to demand the disclosure forms, then Americans will be left in the dark about corruption and the pernicious effect of corruption,” Scherb said. “It will ultimately be up to DOJ to enforce existing laws and regulations prohibiting the profit sharing off of government.”
Even more concerning are the Trump companies’ expansion into areas regulated by the federal government. Any deal between the PGA and LIV, for example, could face (or not face) antitrust scrutiny by Trump’s Justice Department.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau all have played a role in regulating cryptocurrencies and protecting investors, and it will be up to the Trump administration to decide how strong or how lenient federal oversight of the industry will be.
“This is a little bit unprecedented,” said Delaney Marsco, director of ethics, for the Campaign Legal Center. “Not only has a president not divested from his financial interests, he has instead expanded his business interests into new industries. Crypto is not only unregulated but harder to track. Now his administration is going to decide on how that industry is going to be governed.”
Bookbinder said that the more disclosure, the more Americans will not be happy with what they learn.
“The American people don’t like the use of government to enrich themselves,” he said. “As more of this comes out, I think it will anger people. But as with so many things with Donald Trump, it’s so big and so multifaceted it’s hard to get people to pay attention to any particular part of it.”
Leavitt said Americans have already weighed in.
“These concerns from so-called ‘watchdogs’ are illegitimate and absurd, and Clearly the American people do not agree, or they would have not overwhelmingly re-elected President Trump to the White House,” Leavitt said. “President Trump always does what’s in the best interest of the American public.”
Marsco said more disclosure would let the public make that call.
“The public has a right to know that these decisions are being made in their best interests, not in the best interests of Trump’s meme coin or Elon Musk’s Starlink,” she said. “These decisions are going to affect the public and we have a right to know that they are being made in the public’s interests.”
Jonathan D. Salant is a freelance writer and columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.
