A sudden infusion of $30 million into Donald Trump's nascent cryptocurrency venture from a Chinese billionaire sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly defrauding investors could potentially deliver an eight-figure payday to a company associated with the president-elect.
Let's break this down:
- Weird Chinese billionaire and possible crook Justin Sun invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial a few days ago.
- WLF sells a crypto token promoted by Donald Trump. The token can't be sold and is explicitly worthless.
- Trump himself has no stake in WLF.
- However, Trump does have a stake in DT Marks DEFI LLC.
- Under certain conditions, DTMDEFILLC is entitled to 75% of WLF's revenue.
- Sun's investment triggered those conditions.
- Sun's investment, therefore, triggers a possible $15 million payday for Trump down the road.
Did you get all that? In simpler terms, this is basically a straight-up bribe to a (soon) sitting president. But for what? This is where "possible crook" comes into play. Sun is being sued by the SEC for various acts of crypto mopery and dopery, and he'd undoubtedly like Trump to put in a good word for him. Common sense screams that this is about as illegal as could be, but the Supreme Court has defined bribery so narrowly that a conviction is all but impossible if the evidence falls anywhere short of a video with both guys cackling over the deal they made. But no such thing exists. It's all understood.
Now, it's entirely possible that Sun is just taking a flyer here and has never so much as discussed this with Trump's bodyguard's wife's cousin. It's chump change to him. But it's still an obvious appeal, and it's only possible because Trump keeps opening the door to things like this. Like he did with Truth Social and his cheap million-dollar watches.
Six weeks and then four more years of this stuff, folks. Suck in your guts.
Kevin is perhaps unaware that Joe Biden, when vice president, played golf with his son Hunter and two of Hunter's business associates. Compared to such blatant corruption, President Trump's behavior has been irreproachable.
Guess he wasn't making enough on his watches, sneakers and bibles
How to get away with bribery: do it in broad daylight and be a white Republican
FIFY. Because Democrats get slammed for bribes and corruption involving sums of money as low as 4-figures all the time. And it’s unclear whether black people will ever be allowed to do the full panoply of crimes that white people can do, even if they profess allegiance to Republicanism.
Here's the really sad truth: if rampant corruption is the worst thing we have to worry about for the next four years, we should all consider ourselves very, very lucky. It's sickening to think about, but the miscreants in charge of the incoming administration have much, much worse goals in mind. I suspect Trump himself would be satisfied with some combination of public worship/grovelling and copious pocket stuffing. The awful people he's putting in positions of authority will really want to express their hatred and cruelty, but Trump might put the brakes on some of that if it's causing him public ridicule and causing him to feel whatever feeling he has in place of shame or humiliation.
In summary, there will be corruption (like nobody's ever seen before!). Pray that's the worst of it.
I think the only thing that will cause him to put the brakes on is not getting a cut of the action. He's not going to run again so why should he worry about his image?
Remember Trump's promise that he could commit murder on Fifth Avenue with impunity.
Merde a Lardo will become the hot spot for folks to check in and leave their gold. I see the repulsives will be there, for a meeting, and t-Rump can charge exorbitant fees that you and I will be paying, as it will be a "write off". This is just the start. We are only slithering around on the icing. Wait until we get to the base of the 10 layer cake!
Trump violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution began at noon on January 20, 2017.
That is the moment that the trouble began. The trouble in this case was not just what Trump did but the failure of everybody to hold Trump accountable for what he did. Plenty of people to blame: the Republicans in power, the Democrats who didn't raise a stink about it, the media for ignoring Trump's crimes and transgressions every single day.
We are living through the absolutely worst corruption in American political history, and all anybody does is shrug their shoulders.