Laws are for the little people
For Trump's friends, everything; for his enemies, Pam Bondi.
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It’s no secret that the second Trump administration is full of grifters who are thrilled to spend your tax dollars to enrich themselves. But you don’t need to be a member of Trump’s cabinet or even his inner circle to benefit from this brave new world.
Trump is comprehensively dismantling financial oversight, pardoning crypto scammers, and making sure cronies get sweet no-bid government contracts. At the same time all of this largesse to white collar criminals is going on, the administration is weaponizing the government against everyone else.
Just look at Trump’s early pardons and commutations. They send a message that financial crime is just fine. You can also think of them as a sort of wish fulfillment. Trump pardons people who were convicted for doing the same things he does routinely. He had to pay $25 million to settle with people who paid for his scammy “Trump University.” He exploited his own campaign donors by signing them up for recurring donations unless they located a tiny box to opt out. He falsified his financial records, inflating his net worth to obtain loans, for which he was fined $364 million.
Trevor Milton, convicted of defrauding people who invested in his electric and hydrogen vehicle company, is probably the best example of how easy it is to buy a pardon from Trump. Milton is the owner of Nikola, an overhyped vehicle company that leverages the name of a famous inventor and promised the moon, but was faking its technology to defraud investors.
Hmmm. Sound familiar?
Milton was convicted of securities fraud in 2022 and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023. But since he remained free on bail pending his appeal, he was able to donate $920,000 to Trump’s PAC in October 2024. That netted him a pardon, which doesn’t just mean he won’t serve prison time. It also means he won’t have to pay the nearly $700 million he was ordered to pony up in restitution to investors. That’s quite a bargain: under $1 million in donations to Trump bought a pardon that saves Milton hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump also commuted the 10-year sentence of Carlos Watson just days before he was set to report to prison. Watson was the co-founder of once-buzzy startup Ozy Media, which imploded when it became clear that he was inflating viewership numbers, lying about revenue, and engaging in shady practices like pretending to be a YouTube executive when talking to potential investors.
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To be fair, it isn’t just that Trump is pardoning rich people. Fervent support of Trump and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen was enough for former Tennessee GOP state Sen. Brian Kelsey to catch Trump’s eye. After the standard Republican whining about how he was the victim of a Biden-led witch hunt, Kelsey pleaded guilty to campaign fraud for trying to shift campaign funds raised for his state legislative seat to his 2016 congressional race. In thanking Trump for the pardon, Kelsey made sure to tie their fates together, twin victims: “May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others the past four years.”
Trump also isn’t limiting his pardons to just people. He broke new ground in excusing lawlessness by pardoning a corporation: BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange. BitMEX had pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by operating without required anti-money laundering provisions. For good measure, he also pardoned BitMEX’s co-founders.
Indeed, crypto scammers might be the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s commitment to corruption. Crypto probably already had a native appeal to Trump, given that it is largely unregulated and is often used for scams. He and his large adult sons already run a crypto company, World Liberty Financial, which is tailor-made for corruption.
It didn’t hurt that the crypto industry showered Trump and other pro-crypto types with millions during the 2024 campaign and then threw in an additional $13 million for his inauguration. That money paid real dividends real quickly, with the Securities and Exchange Commission dismissing actions against several crypto companies that ponied up for Trump’s low-rent festivities.
There’s also the crypto reserve. It’s an objectively stupid idea, even if it wasn’t a scam. Cryptocurrency is volatile, so America buying a bunch of it does nothing to hedge against inflation. It lends itself well, however, to corruption, with Trump likely having tipped off his inner circle to boost prices just before he published an executive order hyping the reserve.
These aren’t the only steps Trump is taking to make life much easier for the already rich. He’s on such a deregulation tear that he’s even undoing his own regulations from his first term. A portion of the Corporate Transparency Act requires companies to disclose their owners to the government as a way to crack down on anonymous shell companies used for money laundering. But this time around, Trump is rendering that provision irrelevant, exempting tens of millions of companies and applying the reporting provision only to about 11,000 foreign-owned corporations.
Thanks to Trump, the ultra-rich also no longer need to worry about things like conflicts of interest. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is poised to build Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield despite having no background in missiles and despite Musk being the head of DOGE. A $73 billion no-bid contract for ICE efforts was just awarded to a company owned by former ICE agents.
Under Joe Biden, the IRS was set to close a loophole that allows large business partnerships to shift assets in a way that avoids taxes despite still having the asset. Closing the loophole would have netted $50 billion over the next 10 years. But Trump rolled back those plans, and instead will use the IRS to attack nonprofits he doesn’t like and track down more immigrants to terrorize.
Nasty, brutish, and short
While the rich are being coddled, everyone else faces increased risk.
Immigrants are being deported en masse, framed as a grave threat to the country, even if they have no criminal record. Dissent is being criminalized, with the administration revoking visas for international students who joined pro-Palestine protests. Trump muses about how it would be great if we had the death penalty for drug-related offenses. He issued an executive order for a “surge” in law enforcement in Washington DC to go after people who commit petty crimes or jump subway turnstiles.
The danger isn’t just the possibility of criminal charges. Trump’s dismantling of regulations means that consumers and investors aren’t protected from financial fraud. The DOJ has already announced that it is drastically scaling back on pursuing criminal cryptocurrency cases, and the SEC has dropped over a dozen cases against crypto companies.
Trump also just fired two Democrats who sat on the board for the National Credit Union Administration. This leaves only one member, and it’s unclear whether the board can continue to operate. So, any oversight of credit unions is nonexistent at the moment.
Also nonexistent at the moment? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump tried to get rid of the CFPB by just firing everyone, though that is currently blocked by a court order. While the SEC enforces securities laws, the CFPB enforces financial laws that affect everyday consumers of products like mortgages and credit cards. It has the power to fine companies that violate the law and has recouped $20 billion for wronged consumers.
It isn’t like Trump invented the coddling of white-collar criminals. Jesse Eisenger wrote a whole book about the DOJ’s longstanding failure to prosecute corporate executives for financial wrongdoing. Wealth has always been a shield against consequences. But never at this scale.
The privileged can buy their way out of trouble by giving Trump money. Corporations can exploit and defraud consumers with increasing impunity. But if you’re a regular person? You’re not just on your own. These days, you’re a target.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
Lisa, I read PN every morning while drinking my first cup of coffee. Let me just say that your informative piece sent chills down my spine. I think it is safe to say that the rich and well-connected have always enjoyed benefits that others do not. But your expose reminded everyone that in this period of history I call America's Dark Ages, the grift and corruption infects our country like a virulent cancer that sickens our entire society. All one has to do is give Drumpf money and poof, you're pardoned and the return on investment is certainly well worth the cost. The heartless, bleached blond Ms. Bondi (with apologies to bleached blonds) must have ice water coursing through her veins (or perhaps poisoned Kool Aid). It should be no secret to anyone that Drump fully intended to weaponize the Department of Injustice against his perceived "enemies." He clearly said as much during the 2024 campaign and even before that. Ms. Bondi is his henchwoman and there is no telling how many lives will be ruined by her actions.
The next time Democrats have a trifecta they need to get serious about repealing old (especially very old) laws that no longer reflect the reality of the US today. Then, they need to get serious about passing new laws to try to prevent what Trump is now doing to the country. We're back to the, wake up, see what horrible things Trump has done while you were sleeping, have breakfast and try to go about your day. After dinner I use 5Calls to leave voicemail messages for my Congressional members, all Republicans. I also go to protests. It isn't a lot, but every little bit helps.