Trump keeps creating avenues for people to quietly give him money
Among the allegations included in a federal indictment made public on Thursday is that prospective donors to New York Mayor Eric Adams were encouraged to avoid contribution limits by using straw donors, people who’d receive money from the actual contributor and give it to Adams under their own name. This allegedly helped Adams increase his contribution total and, as a result, the amount he received from the city’s matching-funds program.
The indictment further alleges that Adams took specific actions on behalf of those who’d provided him benefits — in short, that he’d been bribed. He allegedly got cash and perks and the donors got something in return. It’s a relationship that’s as old as politics itself.
As Americans were poring over the Adams indictment, former president Donald Trump made an announcement on the social media platform he owns.
“The Official Trump Watch Collection is here, and these Watches are truly special,” he wrote in a post. “You’re going to love them. Would make a great Christmas Gift. Don’t wait, they will go fast. GET YOUR TRUMP WATCH RIGHT NOW!” The post included a link to a website, GetTrumpWatches.com.
There are two models available. A silver one, given the evocative name “Fight Fight Fight,” retails for $499. The “gold tone” iteration is $300 more, putting it among the more expensive offerings in Trump’s still-expanding galaxy of Trump-branded products he’s offering his millions of supporters. But no product beyond a membership at one of the Trump Organization’s private clubs is pricier than the “Tourbillon” watch Trump thinks you might want to give someone for Christmas. It’s priced at a cool $100,000.
Perhaps you’re wondering what this has to do with the Adams indictment. Or, perhaps, you’ve already made the connection. Here is a company encouraging people to “join President Trump’s watch community,” offering up a product that retails for six figures. Each watch, the website promises, will include a “personalized ‘Thank You’ message from President Trump,” ensuring, it seems, that Trump knows who made the purchase. What’s more, the company tells buyers that they accept bitcoin as payment — a method of payment that makes it easy to keep the transaction otherwise private.
So let’s say that you are a Rich Person who wants to give generously to Donald Trump in a way that ensures Trump recognizes and appreciates your generosity. You could donate to his campaign, sure, but you’re only allowed to give $3,300. You could deploy straw donors, the way the Adams contributors allegedly did, but that brings with it the risk of jail time (though Trump has pardoned people convicted of that crime in the past). Not to mention that putting money into Trump’s campaign is very different from putting it directly into his pocket.
Maybe, then, you have some people for whom you need to buy Christmas gifts?
This is all apparently legal, given that Trump is not currently a public official.
There are lingering questions about the extent to which Trump accepted money from those seeking access when he was running for the presidency eight years ago and once he was elected. The Washington Post reported last month on an investigation into whether Trump had been the beneficiary of millions of dollars from the Egyptian government. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee documented nearly $8 million in payments made by foreign governments alone to the Trump Organization while Trump was president.
Trump wouldn’t get all $100,000 from the sale of those watches, of course. The devices are made of gold and inlaid with dozens of diamonds — or, at least, the versions promoted on the website are. (The site notes that the photos “shown are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the product.”) That incurs a cost. The company with which Trump is partnering will get a cut, too. But it’s safe to assume that Trump will get a big chunk from each sale.
Perhaps you’re skeptical that anyone would buy such a watch. In general that’s fair, though it ignores the influence-seeking motivation delineated above. Plus, we have evidence of people paying exorbitant sums for an even less valuable commodity: Trump’s line of non-fungible tokens, digital images depicting Trump doing various red-state-friendly activities. In the financial disclosure his campaign released last month, Trump reported earning more than $7 million from allowing his name and likeness to be used for the NFTs. That’s millions of dollars spent so that people could say they own a copy of an illustration of, for example, Trump for some reason dressed like a racecar driver.
The watch is a particularly egregious example of Trump’s profit-taking efforts, one that was poorly timed for the contrast it drew with Adams’s alleged avarice. But there are so many: over-expensive sneakers, pricey cologne, beverage coolers that retail for nearly $300 and various books that put another $5 million into Trump’s pocket. That’s excluding the Bible he promoted, one that earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It also came less than two weeks after another new Trump venture was rolled out. That one was a complicated cryptocurrency-based product, one that allows people to buy in before using its assets to make loans. Here, again, the money that flows in could include untraceable amounts from anyone, including foreign actors. If a government like Egypt’s did want to make a seven-figure payout to Trump without attracting the attention of federal investigators, there are more vehicles for them to do so than there were eight years ago.
The most generous interpretation of the heavy rotation of product promotion in which Trump is engaging is that he realizes his window for vacuuming cash out of his supporters’ pockets is closing. Should he lose in November, will his superfans still want to pay $99 for a Trump NFT? For any random product stamped with the letters “TRUMP”?
The most alarming interpretation is that, as he prepares to potentially return to the White House, Trump is monetizing his forthcoming power rather than simply his name.