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- Arne Werchick
- May 30
- 16 min read
Updated: Aug 27
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CORRUPTION, MAGA STYLE
Jun 21
Abstract: The relatively modest net worth and extensive charitable activities of the Bidens and Obamas contrasts markedly with the significant and controversial financial gains of Donald Trump and his associates. Trump’s unprecedented increase in wealth, his refusal to divest from personal business interests, and his use of cryptocurrency ventures, luxury auctions, and foreign gifts to enrich himself and his family are breathtaking. The analysis underscores the dissolution of the Trump Foundation for legal and ethical violations, in contrast to the ongoing philanthropic work of the Obama and Biden foundations. The essay also addresses the global perception of Trump’s presidency, noting widespread criticism from international media and concerns about the impact of his actions on American democracy and the economy. The scale and brazenness of Trump’s self-enrichment and acceptance of lavish gifts far exceed those of his predecessors, raising serious questions about corruption, governance, and the future of American political integrity.
Cor·rup·tion
/kəˈrəpSH(ə)n/
noun 1. dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power,
2. Trump, Trump family
3. decay; putrefaction:
Word Origin Middle English: via Old French from Latin corruptio(n-), from corrumpere ‘mar, bribe, destroy’ (see corrupt).
I am sick and tired of the MAGA drumbeat that the Biden and Obama families were “more corrupt” than Donald Trump, as if that were possible. Forbes says the Biden family currently has a net worth of $10 - 15 million, which also factors in Jill Biden’s lecturing income and includes whatever Hunter Biden allegedly accumulated by trading on Joe’s name and fame. The Obamas have done much better and now have a net worth of about $70 million, including book and media contracts representing about 90% of that. They are definitely what we would call rich. Corrupt? Sadly it seems Democrats just weren’t very good at it. While Obama was president the family couldn’t refinance the mortgage on the family home in Chicago because it might have appeared his status was influencing the market. The Biden family is the least wealthy among ex-presidents in modern history. Should have read The Art of the Deal.
Trump? The Guardian has estimated that his family’s wealth has increased by more than $3 billion since he was elected, almost doubling his previously estimated net worth. Plus there’s the future value of Trump-branded properties for which he and his sons cut deals right and left as he travels the middle East supposedly on behalf of America. Moreover he is the first modern president not to divest his investments before taking office but instead has his sons and other family members or family-controlled businesses running the enterprises while he presides, with daddy peering over their shoulders. It’s also impossible to place an accurate present valuation on such things as the $2 billion long-term UAE commitment to Trump’s crypto currency or the value of favorable future deals for development of Trump properties in Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- countries he visits on the public dime as U.S. president. I won’t even delve into the hundreds of millions Don Jr and Eric pull in while daddy sits in the White House. Don Jr has created the Executive Club which offers access to daddy and cabinet members and charges a $500,000 initiation fee; there allegedly is already a waiting list for ultra-rich tycoons to join.
Trump presently nets hundreds of millions from his fake crypto coin sales to gullible loyalists (via Trump-owned Cryptocurrency Initiatives which controls 80%(!) of the coins issued to his believers) and pretty plainly manipulating the markets by announcing rapid fire conflicting Executive Orders which drive stock prices up or down, often increasing the value of his holdings. With millions of dollars bid, he moreover literally auctioned off the rights to dine with him or visit the White House, requiring that the bidding be done in the family digital crypto currency, generally viewed as a “novelty investment” rather than something with intrinsic value, and charges of $1 million per seat at dinner. “It is a Mount Everest of corruption,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon. The man is so inherently corrupt that he openly uses the U.S. government as personal property: he is the government, and the government is his. He has even threatened ex-co-president Elon Musk with “serious consequences” if Musk were to consider donating to Democrats -- clearly a brazen and patently illegal abuse of power to disrupt the American political process.
According to a May 17th editorial in The Economist, “Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset.” I don’t pretend to understand the legerdemain of crypto, but I do know that the $US is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States so a buck will always be worth 100 cents, while the $TRUMP is backed by the full faith and credit of . . . Donald Trump; it gyrates from thousands to almost zero -- but the Trump family gets paid for every single crypto $T buy or sell and has already netted an additional hundreds of millions in U.S. dollars (not $TRUMP, mind you), plus the auction proceeds for dinner and visits presumably go into Trump’s pocket. More significantly it’s a sly conduit to collect vast unreported foreign donations which would otherwise without question be breathtakingly illegal.
Fawning dignitaries foreign and domestic are anxious to stay in Trump hotels (which charge Trump’s secret service details top premium rates for rooms!) and install major golf tournaments at Trump resorts. He is receiving and enjoying lavish gifts from foreign kings, sheikhs and plutarchs. Now the Emir of Qatar, out of the goodness of his heart, gifts an ultra-luxury aircraft which Qatar unsuccessfully had been trying for years to sell and which Trump claims he will be donating, gold toilets and all, to the Trump Presidential Library upon leaving office -- that is, when Trump isn’t claiming the gift is to the Department of Defense and not the president. According to the New York Times, “ it could cost $1 billion or more to retrofit that Qatari plane to get it ready for use as Air Force One, a process that former Air Force officials said may take longer than finishing the job Boeing is already doing to deliver the first two planes.”
The slime runs deep since Trump has become notorious for failing to declare most foreign gifts as required by the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, so we may never know exactly what’s buried under the orange hair. And don’t overlook how Trump is also enriching his minions, like the billions that will accrue from recent favorable deals for Peter Thiel (Palantir) and the 13 billionaires appointed by Trump to cabinet and other high administration positions. Can you believe (as reported in The Hill) that “former Fox News host Tucker Carlson agreed with a guest on his podcast that the timing of the Trump Organization’s business ventures in the Middle East — just as the Trump administration announced new deals with those foreign governments — ’seems like corruption.’” Wow, Tucker!
Yes, foreign nations often have made gifts to previous US. presidents for ceremonial purposes. The most expensive gift to Barrack Obama from a foreign nation or dignitary was a gem-encrusted horse sculpture from the Saudi king valued at $523,000; it was left with the National Archives when he left office. This gift stands out as the most extravagant ever received by a U.S. president, far surpassing the value of most other state gifts -- until Donald Trump became so popular with middle East potentates, that is. The next most expensive gift ever given by a foreign nation or dignitary to a U.S. president was a gold mechanical bird valued at $110,000 gifted to President Bill Clinton also by Qatar. (Apparently the bird "tweets, turns, and flaps its wings once per hour," according to archival records.) The most expensive gift Joe Biden received from a foreign nation or dignitary during his term of office was a $12,000 Russian pen and desk set presented by Trump’s ex-BFF Vladimir Putin in 2021; it too was deposited with the National Archives. Oh the Biden vice, the corruption.
So while Trump grows vastly richer, it’s fair to ask if perhaps the United States is profiting from having the great dealmaker negotiating for us. Sadly, no. His abrupt devastation of American foreign assistance programs has made us an international pariah and is costing thousands of lives by terminating vital food and medical programs. His hundreds of promised foreign trade deals haven’t produced a single useful final agreement. His tariffs, rather than enriching us, are damaging the economy, perhaps deeply and for the long term. Peace deals or stabilizing international agreements? Not for Ukraine or with Iran or China -- those are on the rocks. It seems the great negotiator is too busy stuffing his humungous pockets while the nation withers.
Before we finish condemning Trump for what looks plainly like classical graft, perhaps we should look at whether Trump perhaps balances the moral books by being generous in parting with his ill-gained riches. Joe and Jill Biden, for example, established the Biden Foundation in 2017, which focused on issues such as cancer research, equality, and military families. The Bidens contributed up to $499,000 of their own money to the foundation during its existence
While in office, Barack and Michelle Obama donated approximately $2.5 million to charities. In 2006, they gave $60,307 to various organizations, and in 2007, they donated $240,000 to charity. Barack Obama donated the entire $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award he received to charitable causes and another $2 million to job-training programs for low-income residents in Chicago, funded in part by his post-presidency speaking fees. The Obamas founded the Obama Foundation in 2014, which has raised over $1.1 billion since 2017 and has net assets of $925 million as of 2022, supporting a range of initiatives, including the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, the Voyager Scholarship, and the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Donald Trump did establish a foundation in 1988 to shelter the proceeds of his ghost-written book, Art of the Deal. However, the Trump Foundation was dissolved by court order in 2018 after investigations revealed multiple legal and ethical violations, including self-dealing and misuse of funds for personal and political purposes. As part of the court settlement, Trump was ordered to pay $2 million in damages to various charities, and the foundation’s remaining assets were distributed to court-approved charities; in settlement, he was compelled to agree to nineteen (19) admissions of personal misuse of foundation funds, and in the unlikely event he creates a new charity he is subject to ongoing reporting requirements, enhanced oversight and legal conditions set by a court. And of course we know how well he gets along with judges. In 2018 and 2019 he rebated a few hundred thousand dollars from his presidential salary to designated government agencies, but since 2008 not one single penny to a charity.
So while Trump plays with his gifted Arabian dagger ($24,000) and Japanese gold golf clubs ($3755) on his lavish Qatari 747 ($400,000,000), the rest of us can just wonder what will become of our retirement accounts while he diddles the stock market, or our groceries when the price of avocados, coffee, sugar, pineapples, or really good beer go through the roof with the tariffs tacked on, or the rich stop paying taxes entirely if the one big beautiful tax gift to the wealthy is adopted so the rest of us can carry the entire burden of what’s left of government services. And not surprisingly the U.S. has dropped to 43rd in life expectancy despite being the richest nation in the world. The anti-corruption forces of the U.S. government are indeed being mobilized: not to slow Trump’s greed but to investigate Joe Biden and Barrack Obama, to purify American higher education Trump-style, to slash Medicaid -- anything to deflect attention from the Trump money machine.
What can one liberal-minded person do? Once again I invite those of you hoping to enhance and expand liberal dialog to invite others to our little discussion group. Pass this essay along, or write something of your own. Every little bit contributes to the process, but please don’t abandon the cause -- at least not yet0 Do something. RESIST!
Arne Werchick, after fifty years as a California litigation attorney, pro tem judge, law lecturer, former Presiding Arbitrator of the State Bar of California, and past president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, moved to Hawaii and lives with his wife Ruth and their rescue dog Topaz. His prior community service included two years as Special Counsel to California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Hastings College of the Law, Administrative Law Judge pro tem, Chair of the Palm Desert Rent Review Commission, and numerous professional and civic organizations, and he was frequently an invited lecturer at continuing education programs. He now writes and publishes OUT OF MY LIBERAL MIND to provide a progressive perspective on current politics and provide a forum for liberal conversation, WIDGETS by WERCHICK, an occasional comment on techie gadgets which might prove useful for seniors, and NJABCTCC -- Phileas Fogg Reports, the voice of the Not-Just-Another-Book-Club Travel Conversation Circle which Arne and Ruth created and moderated. Contact Arne at liberalmind@werchick.com or njabctcc@werchick.com
June 7
Abstract: This essay argues that Donald Trump's second presidential term follows a classic dictatorial playbook that has been employed throughout history by authoritarian leaders seeking to consolidate power. The analysis identifies several key phases in this process: first, fabricating an emergency crisis (in Trump's case, the fentanyl crisis and illegal immigration) to justify extraordinary measures; second, framing the crisis in terms that appeal to the leader's base while scapegoating specific groups; third, systematically purging potential internal opposition through actions like revoking security details for former officials and intimidating critics; fourth, weakening democratic institutions by threatening Congress members with electoral opposition, defunding universities, and shutting down government agencies standing in his way; and finally, seeking legislative ratification of expanded powers through comprehensive bills. The essay draws historical parallels to Julius Caesar, Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Putin, and other autocrats who cited emergencies to justify their actions. While noting that such regimes typically fail due to military defeat, economic collapse, loss of elite support, or popular resistance, the essay concludes with a call for active civic engagement and peaceful resistance to prevent the permanent erosion of democratic institutions.
Since day one of term two Donald Trump, trampling the constitution and without legislative authority, rules by decree. His Congress has to date proven most subservient. Bills have been introduced to carve his likeness onto Mount Rushmore (Rep Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida), to put his face on the $100 bill notwithstanding the law prohibiting using the likeness of any living person on U.S. money (Rep Brandon Gill, R-Texas), to make Trump’s birthday a national holiday (Rep Claudia Tenney, R-New York), to rename Dulles Airport Trump International Airport (Rep Addison McDowell, R-North Carolina), to award him the Nobel Peace Prize (Darrell Issa, R-California), and to impeach every federal District Court judge who has ruled against Trump’s edicts (Reps Andy Ogles, R-Tennessee; Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia; Eli Crane, R-Arizona; and Derrick van Orden, R-Wisconsin). We’re watching with bated breath to see if the vague rumblings of Republican senatorial discontent materialize into any significant resistance or simply dissolve into more headline grabbing.
The first thing the tyrannical despot does to seize absolute power is to fabricate an emergency and declare it an official threat to the very existence of the state requiring urgent action thereafter -- ever after. It of course helps to blame the crisis on the failures or criminal conduct of the tyrant’s predecessors. What was Trump’s first sudden emergency? Fentanyl, coming from Mexico, or is it Canada, or is it directly from China, or perhaps Mars or somewhere else with millions of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border unchecked. It matters not that deaths from synthetic opioids decreased by an estimated 37% between 2023 and 2024, well before Trump re-took office, or that neither legal nor illegal southern-border immigration has contributed one bit to significant employment, crime or economic harm to the nation. The latest emergency -- this one on April 2 to justify the vast irrational imposition of tariffs on almost every country in the world: "foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency,” says the prez. That particular emergency has been going for seventy-five years or more -- but such precision cannot be expected from a stable genius like the Donald. The dictator’s best emergency is of course a slippery and elusive one which doesn’t suggest any obvious solution, thus silencing the quibblers.
Next after naming the peril is to cloak the emergency action in terms acceptable to the populace, at least to the populace which puts the tyrant in power and keeps him there. For Trump, that’s easy and natural: MAGA fears and hates Mexicans -- particularly Mexican rapists and violent criminals who stream across our open borders by the millions. (Fentanyl is rarely mentioned nowadays, while the illegal-entry-violent-criminal trope remains almost a daily theme.) As a brief aside, it is extremely difficult to compare statistics about rape, given that it is one of the most under-reported crimes. But the best we can learn is rough estimates of about 700 rapes per million population in Mexico and about 1000 per million in the United States. The conclusion has to be that American men are probably far more likely to be rapists than Mexicans -- or, with lots more certainty, that Trump once again dishes the cattle excrement.
Next comes the cleansing. It is important that the tyrant not face internal opposition, lest his autocratic energies become dissipated just staying in power. The way to accomplish this is to remove all the enemies or relegate them to impotency. Here is where Trump I failed and Trump II is succeeding in spades. During his first term, there were at least a few in positions of authority with the wisdom and power to stymie his worst impulses. Trump’s own ignorance of government further enabled putting on the brakes. Not that he has become any smarter as his mental status further deteriorates, but most likely because his closest most loyal neo-fascist confidants like Bannon, Scavino, Miller, Homan. Noem and Don Jr. now direct him case by case and keep a tight rein as he engages in daily purges of the insufficiently loyal. He revoked the security details of people like his first term Secretary of State and National Security Advisor who have both received credible death threats -- and announcing publicly that Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and others would no longer receive federal protection! Notice now that Trump isn’t limiting his attacks to critics who might fail to support his efforts to deal with his fabricated emergency but now has broadened his fury to those who might insist on fiscal responsibility, or oppose irrational import duties which actually hurt many of Trump’s core loyalists, or support Medicaid. His latest enemy is Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) -- Rand Paul, for goodness sake, just about the most dependably right-wing member of the U.S. Senate, only he lately isn’t one to genuflect or kiss Trump’s ample posterior. Obviously the purpose of these announcements isn’t just to silence their opposition or belittle them -- name and shame is Trump’s favorite parlor game -- but really to intimidate all the others who might for a brief moment think of crossing Great Leader. Careful, or the FBI will be knocking at your door.
The next step to dictatorship is to weaken or isolate the institutions which might obstruct or slow the tyrant’s march. Close the courthouse, silence the lawyers, insure the legislature is a rubber stamp, threaten any public service organizations which have enough following to prove obstructive. Simply ignore the breathtaking seventy-nine national injunctions already holding Trump decrees to be so blatantly illegal. Cut off any federal funding from any university which might harbor intelligent opponents of the regime. Shut down government agencies whose work might illuminate the dictator’s flaws and which happen to be staffed with civil service carry-over employees from prior administrations. Start the process of rewriting the nation’s history to suggest that it has been hungering for the tyrant all along, that the tyrant’s supporters are the good people and all others evil, that the tyrant truly has ushered in the Golden Age notwithstanding the wobbly state of the nation’s economy, the uncertain business climate, the decisions of hundreds of judges that the tyrant acts illegally (some of these judges appointed by the tyrant himself, many others by appointees of Reagan or a Bush, predecessors from the tyrant’s political persuasion).
Then and only then it is time to seek legislative ratification of the tyrant’s authority and put it writ large on the statute books. That, friends, is the One Big Beautiful Bill which squeaked through the House of Representatives by one vote, now being criticized by some of those who voted for it and by at least one congresswoman who admits she hadn’t read it before voting for it. This is where we are today as we await Senate action.
Let us now pivot and scope out the historical precedent for this playbook, and its provenance is deep. Julius Caesar literally crossed the Rubicon to preserve the nation from the internal threat created by his adversary Pompey, just as Trump now urgently tells the world he must undue the peril created by his criminal robot predecessor Joe Biden. The 1933 burning of the Reichstag enabled Hitler to invoke Article 48 to seize absolute power; one Colorado mall attack by a crazed Egyptian is all Trump needed for an immigration shutdown (but, strangely, not including Egypt), legal process be damned. Mussolini claimed Italy was “on the brink of chaos”. The current autocratic regime in Hungary cited mass migration and the Ukraine war as justifying emergency powers which persist to this day over four years later. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seized emergency power because of the 2023 devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey. Pinochet in Chile justified his power grab because of the “breakdown of democracy” under Salvador Allende and the threat of communism; neither threat diminished in any perceptible way during his administration. Vladimir Putin constantly cites on-going terrorism and security threats, along with the alleged chaos caused by his predecessors. Emergency declarations of threats to national security or public order suffice in Cambodia. The South Africa apartheid governments from the 1960s onward cited alleged internal unrest and ungovernability of Townships; Trump’s updated 2025 version: “rigged elections” everywhere his movement loses. Notice the enabling emergencies commonly are of long standing, chronic, not amenable to quick or easy answers; no matter, once absolute power has vested in the tyrant the emergency can be dismissed. (On Day One Trump will end the Ukraine war, lower the price of eggs, secure the border and so on . . . . never mind, these things will take time.)
What, if anything, can we learn from history about how these autocracies and kakistocracies do fail? Most dramatically, some ended with military defeat. In most instances, they were accompanied by economic mismanagement and sometimes collapse: when the dictator can no longer deliver, he must leave. Loss of elite support is a common factor in the demise of authoritarian government: in the words of the immortal Dean Martin, everybody needs somebody sometime, and tyrants are beholden to their money backers and enforcers. The last viable weapon against the autocrat is popular mobilization and civil resistance -- it was “People Power” in the Philippines, Eastern Europe in the 1980s and the Arab Spring; these are examples where dictatorships ended, admittedly not always with relative democracy installed permanently, but nonetheless reached their sell-by dates. Which, not surprisingly, leads us once again to today’s lesson.
It is unlikely, although not unimaginable, the U.S. will sustain a military defeat during Trump II. A collapse of the U.S. economy seems more foreseeable, but probably in slow drips rather than suddenly. Elon Musk’s defection may be a start (isn’t it a treat to see two odious deranged moguls squabble like small children), but most of the billionaire elite -- Lutnick, McMahon, Bessant, Pichal et al., -- remain Trump-loyal. That is why, if you are anxious for the future of our democracy, it is important that you do even some little thing to manifest your concern. Write a letter to the editor, attend a public protest of Trump’s actions, discuss this among friends, encourage others to speak out, pass my essays along to other possibly like-minded, create you own quiet peaceful and non-threatening resistance. But please don’t just chuckle a bit at my feeble attempts at humor and then press the delete button.
Arne Werchick is a retired trial lawyer with decades of courtroom experience and a lifelong passion for justice and civic engagement. Now enjoying a second career as a writer, he shares thoughtful insights and reflections on law, politics, and society through his blog. His writing blends legal expertise with a sharp eye for current affairs, aiming to inform and provoke meaningful conversation.
Arne Werchick, after fifty years as a litigation attorney with emphasis on medical-legal issues, pro tem judge, law writer and lecturer, former Presiding Arbitrator of the State Bar of California, and past president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, moved to Hawaii and lives with his wife Ruth and their rescue dog Topaz. He tries to inspire liberal thought and action with regular editorial essays on liberal issues and can be contacted at liberalmind@werchick.com.
