During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump disavowed familiarity with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan for autocratic takeover of the U.S. That disavowal proved as truthful as his promise not to disturb the East Wing of the White House.
Curtis Yarvin, whose philosophy punctuates the main tenets of Project 2025, supported Trump’s campaign because he thought Trump would overthrow democratic institutions and replace the presidency with a “Monarchist CEO” who would run the country like a for-profit corporation.
Trump, profiting from office like no other president in U.S. history, is well on his way. On Oct. 28, Forbes reported that Trump — at only 10 months into his second term — has nearly tripled his personal net worth, increasing it from $2.5 billion in 2020 to $7.1 billion today, largely from crypto schemes and pay-to-play federal transactions.
Accumulating acts of corruption
Last week, Trump announced a list of 37 wealthy donors funding his 90,000 square foot $300 million gilded ballroom. Donors include several billionaire individuals, along with data-analytics company Palantir, defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, YouTube, Apple, Comcast, Amazon, T-Mobile, Chevron, Google, Hard Rock International, and Meta, most of whom have already seen or expect to see a surge in federal contracts.
In The Corruption Chronicles, Issue One compiled a partial list of other ways Trump has monetized the presidency by transforming it into a vehicle for his own private gain. From selling access to his administration to using foreign visits to attract financial support for his own businesses, Trump has officially turned his presidency into a for-profit venture.
Examples of illegal, shady, or ethically suspect activities to date include:
- Every nation Trump visited on the first official foreign trip of his second term had ongoing private business deals with the Trump Organization;
- Trump has made billions of dollars through crypto ventures since last November, including his (and Melania’s) launch of memecoins — cryptocurrency products widely understood as having no utility;
- 92% of the top 25 investors in Trump’s cryptocurrency memecoin scheme appear to be foreign nationals;
- The United Arab Emirates recently made a $2 billion investment into the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, using a stablecoin created by a firm with close financial ties to the Trump family;
- Trump accepted a $400 million luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar which could cost American taxpayers up to $1 billion to retrofit into Air Force One;
- Trump is selling a new $5 million “Trump gold card” investment visa to give wealthy foreigners permanent US residency status and the ability to make political contributions;
- Trump raised Mar-a-Lago membership fees to $1 million, up from $200,000 in 2017 while Trump Jr. co-founded a Trump-aligned private club in Washington, D.C.; and
- Trump is now demanding a quarter-billion dollar private payment, threatening to sue the federal government he “runs” if he doesn’t get it.
Why billionaires can’t directly fund government agencies Trump favors
After openly soliciting and accepting sums of money the corporate media is reluctant to call bribes, Trump most recently announced a $130 million “gift” to help pay military service members during the government shut down.
A long-standing federal law prohibits Mellon’s type of “gift” for several reasons. The primary issue is Article I of the Constitution, which directs Congress, not the executive, to control federal spending. Because of Art. I, a president’s ability to spend money or incur debt requires explicit congressional approval. The Antideficiency Act protects the balance of power at the same time it guards against foreign and domestic private influence over federal affairs.
Trump ignored this Constitutional constraint and seems to regard federal assets, including the armed forces, as his personal property. By letting a wealthy heir cut a check for the military, Trump circumvented the Constitutional framework under which both he and Congress are supposed to operate, and permanently sealed his contempt for Congress.
Project 2025, the Monarchist CEO, and the roots of Trump’s oligarchic takeover
The New Yorker reported that Curtis Yarvin, of Project 2025 proposed that the U.S. “CEO-king” “would have “absolute power, dismantle democratic institutions, and liquidate the existing government bureaucracy.” But earlier this month, Yarvin lamented on his substack that Trump hadn’t gone far enough, fast enough.
Perhaps Trump’s unprecedented 13 billionaires serving as his “cabinet” can read Yarvin’s lament and get to the part where he intuits that Democrats’ 2026 midterm blowout will bring a tsunami of legal reckoning. Yarvin is so fearful of what he calls “liberal vengeance” to come that he has publicly revealed plans to leave the country.
There’s also speculation that Trump and his enablers will do the same rather than face legal fire if Republicans can’t rig the 2026 midterms.
What really may be driving Trump’s private ventures abroad is his predator’s sense that his second coup attempt, like his first, will fail.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
