On May 5, millionaires, billionaires, and CEOs shelled out a reported $1.5 million per plate to dine with President Donald Trump. The proceeds from the night went to a political action committee controlled by Trump.
It sure looked like wealthy people and businessmen paid for access to the president, who wields great power over the taxes they pay, the regulations they follow, and the subsidies and contracts they receive. If it was corrupt, though, it was almost ordinary corruption for the United States.
Johnny Chung, a major Chinese donor to former President Bill Clinton, described the arrangement.
“I see the White House like a subway: you have to put in coins to open the gates,” he said.
But there’s a new kind of turnstile in Washington, D.C., and it will be on display later this month. Trump and his private club are hosting another dinner for big spenders — cryptocurrency investors. However, there is an important difference between the two events. While the May 5 guests paid their admission to a PAC, the May 22 guests will gain admission by personally enriching Trump.
Specifically, the May 22 dinner is for the top 220 owners of Trump’s cryptocurrency.
Both events may be corrupt, but, to adapt P.J. O’Rourke’s phrase, Trump’s PAC dinner was corrupt within normal parameters.
Unfortunately, selling access to power to fill political coffers is normal for U.S. presidents. Selling access to power to enrich yourself and your family is typically reserved for third-world governments or Cook County, Illinois.
Here’s how the whole crypto arrangement works:
After winning the election in 2024, Trump launched his coin, which has the ticker symbol $TRUMP.
Nobody believes $TRUMP has any underlying value. It’s not really a currency. It’s typically called a “meme coin” because, like an internet meme, it’s a bit of a joke. Owning it is essentially a way to signal allegiance or membership in some clique.
Owning a meme coin is like owning collectible artwork — it’s only worth as much as the next buyer is willing to pay for it. Similar to the artwork of former first son Hunter Biden, it’s safe to suspect that the people buying Trump’s coin may be doing so because it is a legal way to funnel money to someone who can make policy that helps them.
But Trump hawking his coin is notably different than Biden hawking bad paintings.
First, the art sales enriched the president’s son, while the crypto sales enriched the president.
Second, the economic arrangement of the Trump coin is a bit more complex. Trump isn’t exactly selling the coins directly, like one might sell their home or stocks. Trump is more like a real estate agent or stockbroker who profits from the sale.
Trump owns a company called CIC Digital, which makes money any time someone buys or sells $TRUMP.
When he announced in April that he was hosting a dinner for the 220 biggest owners of his coin, the price shot up. More importantly for Trump, lots of people bought up the coin — more trading volume means more money for Trump — about $1.25 million in a week, according to a Washington Post analysis.
These people paid Trump for access to Trump. Some of them are surely wealthy Trump supporters who mostly want to be in the same room with him. But some of them are folks who have or want to have business before the federal government — lobbyists, government contractors, or agents of foreign governments.
An analysis by Bloomberg News said the recent buyers of $TRUMP are mostly foreigners.
Are they Pakistanis or Indians hoping to win his favor in their recent hot war? Are they Russians or Ukrainians? Are they Chinese officials or executives seeking the same sort of reprieve from sanctions that Trump has given TikTok?
It’s likely that some of this pay-to-play action will work, given what we know about Trump. First, there are the favors Trump is willing to do for his friends. Consider how he did an about-face on the TikTok ban because TikTok investor Jeff Yass was his supporter, or when he agreed to extradite a Chinese dissident to please a friend who wanted to open a casino in China.
DEMOCRATS TO INTRODUCE BILL BANNING TRUMP AND LAWMAKERS FROM SPONSORING CRYPTO COINS
Also, consider all the quid-pro-quo, pay-to-play operatives who received clemency or prosecutorial favors from Trump: Rod Blagojevich, Paul Manafort, Elliot Broidy, Kwame Kilpatrick, and Duke Cunningham, to name a few.
Trump is setting up turnstiles around Mar-a-Lago’s banquet rooms, and special interests are happily paying the fare.