Grifts around 47: A running catelogue for this presidency

Know your customers.

Trump team caught marking up MAGA merch while touting Black Friday 'deals'​

The campaign's Black Friday fundraising email hawks multiple items that appear to contain higher prices than what's listed on its website, according to Meidas Touch.

Revealed: Pro-Trump group scored an additional $1 billion in taxpayer dollars​

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a pro-Donald Trump think tank run by his former chief of staff, helped secure a $1 billion Department of Homeland Security contract tied to new planes for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the fast-tracked contract is closely linked to AFPI’s top donor. That donor, William Walters, runs the company that received a separate $140 million Noem-approved contract to buy six Boeing 737 planes for use in deportations, as the Post reported last week.

DHS claimed that the nonpartisan federal officials ensure the legitimacy of contracting decisions. Indeed, they do, but not in this case. The Post obtained emails exposing that it was the political appointees who chose the Meadows outfit for the $1 billion contract.

[Again, this is one reason why we want people hired in an apolitical process for the rank and file jobs in the government.]

The main contract went to an Arlington-based firm, Salus Worldwide Solutions, incorporated in 2023, which advertises expertise in coordinating international travel, disaster relief, and security facilities. It has never previously held a federal contract

essentialsaltes said:

Trump Mobile's Golden Smartphones Delayed For Months After Launch, Reports Say​

Trump Mobile's website has also removed any mention of the August launch date

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YOU CAN GET A TRUMP MOBILE PHONE, JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS!

$6 million bounties on the table for securing a Trump pardon: report

The explosion in pardon activity has created what the Journal describes as a "pardon-shopping industry," with lobbyists charging standard rates of $1 million for their services. The report notes that pardon-seekers have offered lobbyists success fees as high as $6 million upon securing a pardon.

essentialsaltes said:

$6 million bounties on the table for securing a Trump pardon: report

The explosion in pardon activity has created what the Journal describes as a "pardon-shopping industry," with lobbyists charging standard rates of $1 million for their services. The report notes that pardon-seekers have offered lobbyists success fees as high as $6 million upon securing a pardon.

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Speaking of Medicare fraud and the 'standard $1 million rate'...

Nursing home owner pardoned by Trump ordered to serve state sentence​

Joseph Schwartz, 65, of New York, was three months into a three-year federal sentence for tax fraud when President Donald Trump pardoned him in November.

Attorney General Tim Griffin filed a petition on Dec. 2 asking a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge to require Schwartz to serve the rest of his Arkansas sentence on Medicaid fraud and state tax evasion charges. The 12-month state sentence was to run concurrently with his federal sentence, according to his plea deal with Arkansas.

The Washington Post reported in November that Schwartz paid right-wing lobbyists $960,000 to secure the federal pardon. The Trump administration denied the lobbying influenced the decision, calling such spending a foolish waste of money.

In defending the pardon, the White House said the three-year federal sentence was “exceptionally harmful to a 65-year-old man already in deteriorating health.”

essentialsaltes said:

Trump Mobile's Golden Smartphones Delayed For Months After Launch, Reports Say​

Trump Mobile's website has also removed any mention of the August launch date and is still collecting $100 deposits for the phone, purported to launch "later this year." The brand also deleted earlier claims that the T1 would be "Made in the USA"

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Make that next year.

Trump Mobile, the phone company launched by Donald Trump’s family business, has pushed back plans to deliver a $499 (£371) gold-coloured smartphone by the end of the year.

The company’s customer service team told the FT that the recent government shutdown had disrupted shipments.


The mobile service joins Trump-branded watches, footwear and Bibles as products capitalising on his political brand, while Trump’s sons have indicated there will be more to come.

Mystery trader garners $400,000-plus windfall on Maduro's capture​

An unknown trader has raked in a profit worth about $410,000 after betting that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro would be ousted from his position.

The trader's account on Polymarket built up positions in contracts tied to Maduro's removal on terms that implied long ‌odds before the weekend raid. Those wagers, which were worth about $34,000 prior to Maduro's capture, surged in value after news of the U.S. ‌military operation on the Venezuelan leader emerged, Polymarket data shows.

The anonymous account was created last month, with the trader buying up $96 worth of contracts on December 27 that would pay off if the U.S. invaded Venezuela by January 31. The trader then made several more similar bets in the following days.

The mystery trade is likely to attract scrutiny from ‍U.S. lawmakers who have been pushing for stricter insider trading rules, including a bipartisan effort to potentially ban trading of stocks by lawmakers.

essentialsaltes said:

Mystery trader garners $400,000-plus windfall on Maduro's capture​

An unknown trader has raked in a profit worth about $410,000 after betting that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro would be ousted from his position.

The trader's account on Polymarket built up positions in contracts tied to Maduro's removal on terms that implied long ‌odds before the weekend raid. Those wagers, which were worth about $34,000 prior to Maduro's capture, surged in value after news of the U.S. ‌military operation on the Venezuelan leader emerged, Polymarket data shows.

The anonymous account was created last month, with the trader buying up $96 worth of contracts on December 27 that would pay off if the U.S. invaded Venezuela by January 31. The trader then made several more similar bets in the following days.

The mystery trade is likely to attract scrutiny from ‍U.S. lawmakers who have been pushing for stricter insider trading rules, including a bipartisan effort to potentially ban trading of stocks by lawmakers.

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The plan to grab Maduro has been in the works since August 2025, and Maduro had been tipped off and was moving around to avoid capture. His movements were reported to the US by a close insider in the Maduro administration. So the info was floating around.

New megadonors with major business before the government back Trump's super PAC​

Business leaders affiliated with AI companies and TikTok and family members of people accused of federal crimes were among those who made big donations to MAGA Inc.

More than a dozen donors who gave at least $1 million to the Trump-affiliated MAGA Inc. super PAC after the president’s 2024 election win hadn’t previously given federal political donations to anyone approaching even 10% of that size, according to an NBC News analysis of Federal Election Commission records. For some, it was their first time sending a disclosed donation to any Trump-aligned political group.

Those contributions came at a time when Trump’s super PAC wasn’t spending on elections, of course, but as Trump was governing or preparing to govern in the year-plus after he won. And while Trump maintains a large and loyal base of longtime supporters and donors, some of the brand-new financial backers have specific business interests in front of the federal government, important contracts with federal agencies or companies in sectors that could face dramatic shifts due to federal policies. Others had relatives facing years in federal prison.

Isabela Herrera gave $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. on New Year’s Eve 2024. Months later, the Justice Department dropped the most serious charges against her father, a banker who had been accused of trying to bribe the former Puerto Rican governor, when he agreed to plead to a misdemeanor.

Elizabeth Fago, a Republican donor from South Florida, had made a handful of five-figure political donations over the years, along with one $100,000 donation to the Republican National Committee in 2002. But her $1 million contribution to MAGA Inc. in April was her largest in FEC records.

Shortly after that donation, her son, Paul Walczak, was sentenced to 18 months in prison following a guilty plea for tax crimes. But Trump pardoned him weeks later.

essentialsaltes said:

Revealed: Pro-Trump group scored an additional $1 billion in taxpayer dollars​

That donor, William Walters, runs the company that received a separate $140 million Noem-approved contract to buy six Boeing 737 planes for use in deportations, as the Post reported last week.

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And what a 737 one of them is!

'No expense has been spared': Inside a luxury jet DHS wants to buy for deportations

DHS leadership says the department needs the jet for immigrant deportations and Kristi Noem’s travel. A brochure given to passengers who recently flew on it with Noem highlights its “exceptional interior design by renowned New York designer Peter Marino.”

An executive jet the Department of Homeland Security has told the White House’s Office of Management and Budget it needs for immigrant deportation flights and Cabinet officials’ travel features a bedroom with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs and even a bar, according to images of the aircraft obtained by NBC News.

Some officials at ICE, which is under DHS, initially deemed the aircraft too luxurious in the way it was outfitted to be used for immigrant deportations, according to one of the officials.

“That particular plane was a ‘no,’ we weren’t going to buy it. Then all of a sudden, they said 'yes,'" the official said.

One of the two DHS officials involved in the purchase request called the idea of using the jet for immigrant deportations “far-fetched.”

“But that’s what they’re claiming,” the official said of DHS leadership.

[We The People are currently renting the plane] Noem recently flew on the jet for a trip to Tel Aviv, according to marketing materials provided to passengers on the trip that detailed the plane’s features.

Trump Secretary Howard "I'm in the Epstein Files" Lutnick Silent as Sons Poised to Make Bank From End of Tariffs​

In July, Wired reported that Cantor Fitzgerald, which Lutnick chaired until he was appointed to Trump’s Cabinet, was allowing its traders to purchase the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars of refunds in the event the tariffs were struck down in court. The firm now happens to be headed by Lutnick’s sons Kyle and Brandon.

The magazine cited a letter from the firm explaining how Cantor Fitzgerald was willing to exchange refund rights for 20 to 30 percent of what the companies paid.

The Age of Kleptocracy​

Geopolitical Power, Private Gain​

Roundup from Foreign Affairs

Throughout [these shenanigans], the only constant interpretation has been that Trump has a “transactional” approach to international politics—the “art of the deal” as grand strategy.

But these assessments all rest on a category error. They begin from the premise that the Trump administration’s primary goal is, as its 2025 National Security Strategy insists, to advance the United States’ “core national interests.” Indeed, U.S. debates about foreign policy, national security, and grand strategy take it for granted that leaders design policy to serve the public good—even if those leaders’ view of the public interest is flawed—rather than to enrich themselves or inflate their personal glory. This is why so many foreign policy analyses argue that the “United States” or “Washington” ought to adopt a particular policy. They assume that the United States has interests that transcend party and that officials occupy their positions as a public trust.

The Trump administration, however, has destroyed this premise. Especially in his second term, Trump has instead wielded U.S. foreign policy principally to increase his own wealth, bolster his status, and personally benefit a small circle of his family members, friends, and loyalists. U.S. foreign policy is now largely subordinate to the private interests of the president and his retainers. These interests may, from time to time, align with some plausible understanding of the public good. Much more often, however, the Trump administration invokes U.S. national interests to deflect from its self-dealing by eroding the distinction between its private interests and those of the American people.