President Trump’s Department of Justice proposed using 1.8 billion dollars of taxpayer money to compensate his allies who believe they were unjustly investigated and prosecuted for breaking the law. There has not been any Congressional review of this fund and very little information about it shared publicly. The money could potentially go to the insurrectionist rioters and offenders who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, many of whom were convicted by juries of serious crimes. Many violently attacked law enforcement officers. He’s done this at the same time he’s claimed we don’t have enough money to pay for healthcare or childcare for hardworking families.
This slush fund is just the latest example of the President’s historic levels of self-dealing and corruption.
The amount of money the President and his sons have made from trading stocks is particularly egregious. They’ve bought and sold millions of dollars' worth of stock in tech companies and government contractors, even at the same time as federal regulatory decisions were made that were favorable to those companies. He has repeatedly been months late to disclose his stock trades as required by law. His latest report revealed that he traded roughly $700 million in stock in the first three months of 2026 alone. For comparison, all 535 Members of Congress made about $635 million in trades in all of 2025. I firmly believe individual stock trading should be banned for all Members of Congress, the Executive Branch, the President’s Cabinet, and immediate family members, but the difference between the President’s profits from stocks and Congress’ is astounding.
Stock trading isn’t the only way the President and his family are profiting from his office. A few more:
The Palm Beach International Airport is being renamed to the Donald J. Trump International Airport. That’s not entirely unusual; twelve other U.S. airports have been named after presidents. But the licensing agreement in this case requires airport vendors to purchase official Trump merchandise to sell, directly violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, and the Trump family could personally profit off merchandise sold outside the airport.
In 2025, President Trump announced the “Trump Phone” and received more than 590,000 preorders and roughly $59 million in sales. A year later, the preorder terms were updated to state, “A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.” That means almost 600,000 people paid to preorder a phone they may never receive.
His Cabinet members have also taken advantage of their positions. The Navy confirmed that Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Director Kash Patel took a VIP snorkel tour through the hallowed area around Pearl Harbor last summer. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy filmed a cross-country road trip with his family sponsored by companies that the Department of Transportation oversees, including Boeing, Shell, American Airlines, and others.
All while President Trump demands billions of dollars of your money for his war of choice in Iran, billions more for his reckless and cruel immigration enforcement agenda, and for his new, gaudy ballroom that he promised would be privately funded. The Trump Administration profits while your gas prices, your groceries, and your rent skyrocket.
Imagine what my Republican colleagues would say if President Obama or Biden did any of this? They could put a stop to all of the self-dealing and grifting. They could reject the President’s new funding requests, they could pass bipartisan legislation to prohibit members of Congress and the Executive Branch from owning or trading stocks, and they could hold him accountable for violating the Emoluments Clause and other ethical abuses.
We need to root out corruption and restore trust in our government. I’ll continue to urge my Republican colleagues to ensure Congress acts as an independently elected, co-equal branch of government and as a check on the Executive Branch the way our Constitution intended.
