Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
May 1, 2026
Trump And His Family Are Enriching Themselves

I do not know if the numbers on the Forbes chart below are correct but it is quite obvious that Trump and his family are using their positions to enrich themselves.


bigger
Som relevant current headlines:

Trump sons to take stake in Kazakh miner that won $1.6bn US backing (archived) – FT
The Trump family last year netted more than $1bn in pre-tax profits from their various cryptocurrency projects and have continued to pile into AI, drones and critical minerals companies that have won lucrative US government contracts

Trump family-backed drone firm signs weapons deal with USBloomberg via MSN

The US Air Force agreed to buy an undisclosed number of interceptor drones from a company backed by President Donald Trump’s sons, according to the firm, deepening the military’s ties to defense contractors linked to the first family as the US war with Iran enters its third month.

Democrats in Congress have asked the Pentagon for more information about other defense contractors and technology firms with ties to the president’s family. In addition to Powerus, Eric Trump backed a reverse-merger deal between Israeli drone maker Xtend and JFB Construction Holdings, a publicly listed construction company.

Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and the Profitable Business of Peace (archived) – NY Times

For the time being, the board’s logo stands for little more than the idea that the politics of peace can be married to capital interests and the belief that this alignment stands to benefit everyone involved. Kushner and Witkoff’s fellow executive board members include Martin Edelman, a corporate lawyer with extensive ties to the upper echelons of the United Arab Emirates, and Marc Rowan, the chief executive of Apollo Global Management. In May 2025, Apollo invested $100 million in the Witkoff Group; Edelman is the general counsel of G42, an A.I. company controlled by the U.A.E.’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. A New York Times investigation found that Tahnoon was involved in a deal that netted $2 billion in 2025 for World Liberty Financial, the crypto company owned by Trump’s and Witkoff’s sons.

In his January executive order establishing it as a public international organization, Trump wrote that the Board of Peace is covered by the International Organizations Immunities Act, which prohibits employees or agents of an international organization (and their immediate family members) from being sued for “official work.” But that same law defines an international organization as an entity that results either from a treaty or from an act of Congress — neither of which is true of the board.

Previous presidents have also benefited financially from their time in office. Joe Biden’s ‘care’ for his family was legendary. But none has been so unashamed about it like Trump.

If only there would be an opposition party in Congress using its power to do something about this.

Comments

Claims that the PTB turned off the internet for 0.7 seconds on Saturday. No one noticed. https://x.com/PaulGoldEagle/status/2050781659969343567
Posted by: unimperator | May 3 2026 9:21 utc | 286
 
Hmmm…that guy seems to be a rehash of the “Q-anon” op back in Trump’s first term. “Trust the plan” “the white hats are going to save us”  etc. etc.  

Posted by: Joe Turner | May 3 2026 13:52 utc | 301

The act of enriching one’s family and associates in the US , crosses political lines throughout out the elected ecosphere and one could label this practice “ the trickle down effect “ .  Promoted and practiced in the US , the trickle down effect has inspired Trump to outdo Joe Biden’s  graft and the practice of presidential enrichment has become normalized in the US.  The acceptance of presidential enrichment by the American public is really an acceptance of the trickle down effect which Trump has enthusiastically embraced. The effects of the trickle down economy has created huge wealth inequality , large tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations , huge government debt , stagnant wages and rich presidents engaging in endlessly wars . 
 

Posted by: Cheryl | May 3 2026 14:59 utc | 302

I shouldn’t be surprised that commenter AUH twisted my words, but I am.  And then Tom Collins jumps in to riff on the twisted words.  How impressive.   I said nothing about Africans owning Africans in Africa,  I said that it was an African who set into motion the events that turned indentured servitude, which was the law in the colonies, into chattel slavery specifically for Africans, and not Europeans.   This shouldn’t be that difficult to understand, for people not steeped in the 1619 Project view of genetic racism.
 
I was moved to respond to the endless white bashing that comes from AUH, who posits that all white people are inherently racist and that is why black people have always been slaves and will always be slaves.  I usually just ignore his racist rants, but the first 200 comments blamed the inherently racist Brits for chattel slavery, which commenters here assume started immediately.   
It didn’t.
 
At first the indentured servant laws applied to Europeans and Africans.  That is how free blacks in the south became free in the first place.
The laws were changed to target only Africans.   That led to the stricter laws that came later, such as laws against miscegenation. 
 
The case which started the process into motion was the case of John Casor, who had served his term of indenture, and was therefore entitled to freedom, but the man who owned the title refused to let him go,  he sued.   The court ruled against him. 
That set off the later laws that discriminated against Africans and their descendants.
 
Unfortunately for the racists on this board, it was an African who started the trend.
 
Too bad people 300 years later are still too dumb to understand English, or simple history concepts, but it suits our current owners to keep people divided by race to this day, so it shouldn’t be surprising how many people internalize it.
 

Posted by: wagelaborer | May 3 2026 15:17 utc | 303

Grifting SOBs

Posted by: MoT | May 3 2026 16:47 utc | 304

If anybody here wants to make some blood money, just follow the bets placed on Polymarkets (which Donald Trump Jr. just so
 
happens to be on the advisory board of).
 
Much of the insider trading … sorry…. well-informed investments involving the USA’s tariff war, kidnapping of Nicholas
 
Maduro, assassination of Iranian religious leaders, or the American/Israeli war of aggression against Iran  were placed on
 
Polymarkets.
 
Remember, only low-level flunkies (see below) will ever be punished. If you are a high-level American regime official, family
 
member, or Epstein Class member, you are good to go!
 
Donald Trump is only doing what America in general is good at:  Make America Grifters Again! 
 
U.S. Soldier Charged With Using Classified Information To Profit From Prediction Market Bets
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-classified-information-profit-prediction-market-bets

Posted by: ak74 | May 3 2026 18:07 utc | 305

Posted by: jinn | May 3 2026 13:13 utc | 301 I stand corrected. I should phrase it this way, I don’t see the anti-Trump media as intending to strengthen Trump’s credibility. (That is unfortunately close to Gruff’s claim of so-called reverse psychology.) I think that the real issue, such as Trump’s flagrant dishonesty in business, his open racism re the Central Park Five, which should have been shouted from the rooftops, the tender approach to his lunatic Birtherism, his apprenticeship with Roy Cohn, were of no interest because the so-called left MSM (meaning leaning Democratic Party) is not oppositional. They are merely rivalrous, limited to tactics that don’t threaten the grift for everybody. They try to pick charges unique to the target.
 
For example, how can you—when it matters in the election—do a weeks-long series by the NYT or a 60 Minutes piece of the scam that was Trump University without doing a dive into lots of people’s dirty laundry in higher education? How do you dig into Trump’s real estate deals without detailing so much corruption there is in NY real estate? How do you really even talk about Trump’s militarism when the custom and practice is to obfuscate the simplest things about military budgets, starting with how much it is. Or maybe it starts with being vague about such things as how many years you’re even talking about, or talking about percentages without ever referring to percentages of how much? And of course, when either faction of the MSM wants to really hatchet someone they simply make stuff up. Even if they retract it later, it can have the desired effect on their audience. The objection that such flagrant unfairness has the opposite effect on the other side’s audience is not really the point of propaganda, which is first of all selling to your market. [That’s why some people seem to equate propaganda solely when aimed at captive audiences?]

Posted by: steven t johnson | May 3 2026 18:42 utc | 306

Posted by: jinn | May 3 2026 13:13 utc | 301 I stand corrected. I should phrase it this way, I don’t see the anti-Trump media as intending to strengthen Trump’s credibility.
Posted by: steven t johnson | May 3 2026 18:42 utc | 308
The goal is to divide the voters right down the middle. For half the voters it is intended to reinforce their strong animus towards Trump and for the other half it has the effect of strengthening Trump’s credibility. The voting results are strong evidence of success in achieving the goal, but a lot of the credit for this very successful division goes to Trump himself who plays the media like a fiddle.
I’m not saying the individual reporters that deliver a hit piece against Trump understand the dynamics of what they’re doing but I’m sure the oligarchs that own the media and Trump do. 

Posted by: jinn | May 3 2026 23:03 utc | 307

“The only constitutional power Americans have today is at the ballot box.. Maybe Americans  should refuse to vote for any candidate that does not promise, on pain of ??, to diligently pursue getting a bottom up amendment into the constitution?” ~  snake | May 3 2026 6:07 utc | 271 ____ “Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear.” ~ Alan Coren Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | May 3 2026 7:43 utc | 283

 Excellent point (and Coren quote). Except at the most localized level, voting rarely accomplishes anything of substance; at best it determines, however indirectly, how big the next hole in the social safety net will be. Talk about an Article 5 Constitutional Convention is, to put it mildly, delusional. Support for the notion has traditionally come from front groups for the Koch Brothers — whose ilk would buy off the delegates — in order to create an even more corporate-friendly and rights-inimical document. The only reason such a Convention has not been called is because the PTB get just about everything they want under the current system.
Posted by: malenkov | May 3 2026 10:58 utc | 290

Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | May 4 2026 2:11 utc | 308

~ Multifoiled ~
 

“ ‘Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear.’ ~ Alan Coren”
~ Strange Bedfellow | May 3 2026 7:43 utc | <a href=”https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/05/trump-and-his-family-are-enriching-themselves.html/comment-page-3#comment-1351334″ rel=”ugc”>283</a>

____

“Excellent point (and Coren quote). Except at the most localized level, voting rarely accomplishes anything of substance; at best it determines, however indirectly, how big the next hole in the social safety net will be. Talk about an Article 5 Constitutional Convention is, to put it mildly, delusional. Support for the notion has traditionally come from front groups for the Koch Brothers — whose ilk would buy off the delegates — in order to create an even more corporate-friendly and rights-inimical document. The only reason such a Convention has not been called is because the PTB get just about everything they want under the current system.”
 
~ malenkov | May 3 2026 10:58 utc | <a href=”https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/05/trump-and-his-family-are-enriching-themselves.html/comment-page-3#comment-1351357″>290</a>

____
 
Of course there’re multifold problems with the relatively one-size-fits-all, large-scale centralized State (‘nation-state’) monoculture for our cognitively-dissonanced, small-scale band/tribal/village multicultural species.____
 
Multifoiledhttps://youtu.be/Sj2IuLTBfRo?si=_s_NmEJe4fzWZgxu

Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | May 4 2026 2:21 utc | 309

Dunno if this might already have been posted here, but:
 

Trump Says US Acting ‘Like Pirates’ Against Iran
Iran has repeatedly condemned the US blockade and seizures of ships as piracy
 

President Trump said on Friday that the US Navy was acting “like pirates” while enforcing the blockade against Iran, comments that affirm Tehran’s characterization of the US military action, which has involved seizing ships and Iranian oil.
 
“We … land on top of it and we took over the ship,” Trump told a crowd of his supporters during a rally in Florida while discussing an Iranian cargo ship the US military fired on and boarded in the Gulf of Oman.
 
“We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business. Who would have thought we were doing that? We’re like pirates. We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates, but we’re not playing games,” he added.
 
Esmaeil Baqaei, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that Trump’s comments were an acknowledgment of the criminal nature of the US blockade.
 
“The President of the United States has openly described the unlawful seizure of Iranian vessels as ‘piracy,’ brazenly boasting that ‘we act like pirates.’ This was no verbal slip. It was a direct and damning admission of the criminal nature of their actions against international maritime navigation,” Baqaei wrote on X.
 
“The international community, UN Member States, and the UN Secretary-General must firmly reject any normalization of such blatant violations of international law,” the Iranian spokesman added.
 

(Reposted from Antiwar.com)

Posted by: George the Zeroth | May 4 2026 3:29 utc | 310

our cognitively-dissonanced, small-scale band/tribal/village multicultural species.____
 
Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | May 4 2026 2:21 utc | 311

 
Yes. I’ve always maintained that humans are incapable of forming functioning societies of more than perhaps a few hundred people. This is why all forms of government fail — or, worse, succeed.

Posted by: malenkov | May 4 2026 9:31 utc | 311

Surprised that no one has mentioned how Jimmy Carter divested himself of his peanut farm before entering office as to avoid any hint of a conflict-of-interest.
 
It’s a whole different reality today…

Posted by: Helen Weals | May 4 2026 14:01 utc | 312

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