The Justice Department has closed about half of its open investigations into bribery by U.S. businesses overseas, but plans to initiate prosecutions to more narrowly focus on misconduct that hurts the country’s capacity to compete with foreign companies, officials said on Tuesday.
President Trump signed an executive order in February pausing all of the department’s investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, pending a review of enforcement policies by Todd Blanche, the department’s No. 2 official.
Good government groups criticized the freeze as the elimination of guardrails needed to prevent corporate abuses. That move coincided with the closing of investigations into the aircraft manufacturer Bombardier and the medical device maker Stryker, among others.
But the shift announced on Tuesday represents a public recognition that the department still has an important role in enforcing the act, and is likely in some instances to aggressively pursue violations….
Category Archives: bribery
“Lawsuit accuses Musk of bribing Wisconsin voters with cash prizes”
A Wisconsin nonprofit organization focused on fighting for fair elections has filed a legal complaint alleging that billionaire Elon Musk illegally bribed voters by giving out cash prizes this year in his attempt to help conservatives take control of the swing state’s Supreme Court.
The complaint, provided to The Washington Post by lawyers representing the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and two Wisconsin voters, claims that Musk, his America PAC and a Musk-linked entity known as United States of America Inc. violated the state’s election law in “a brazen scheme to bribe Wisconsin citizens to vote.”
The complaint stems from actions of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO ahead of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election this spring, when he handed out $1 million checks to Wisconsin voters and when his super PAC, America PAC, paid registered voters $100 each for signing petitions and providing their contact information.
State law, the complaint notes, bars offering or giving “any amount of money over $1” to induce anyone to go to the polls, vote or vote for a particular person. The complaint also claims the actions violated the state’s prohibition on unauthorized lotteries….
Musk similarly deployed high-value giveaways in swing states during the 2024 election, saying he would hand out $1 million daily in a lottery for registered voters who signed a petition as part of his super PAC’s recruitment drive. The program also sought to give $47 cash incentives for valid referrals to registered voters in swing states. Despite legal efforts to stop Musk’s tactics during the 2024 presidential campaign, a Pennsylvania judge said that prosecutors failed to show it was an illegal lottery, and he allowed the giveaways to continue through Election Day.
Tuesday’s complaint aims to prevent Musk and his groups from taking similar actions in Wisconsin in future elections. In recent months, Musk has sent mixed signals as to whether he plans to stay politically involved in U.S. elections….
See my March 28 posts, Elon Musk Appears to Be Breaking Wisconsin Law Against Vote Buying in Offering a Chance to Win $1 Million to Anyone Who Voted in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race and Elon Musk, Recognizing Likely Illegality of His Offer of Lottery for People Who Voted in Wisconsin State Supreme Court Race, Tweaks Offer to No Longer Require Voting.
“As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests”
Peter Baker for the NYT:
When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.
Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.
The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.
Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr. Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.
And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.
By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.
“I’ve been watching and writing about corruption for 50 years, and my head is still spinning,” said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in the United States.
Yet a mark of how much Mr. Trump has transformed Washington since his return to power is the normalization of moneymaking schemes that once would have generated endless political blowback, televised hearings, official investigations and damage control. The death of outrage in the Trump era, or at least the dearth of outrage, exemplifies how far the president has moved the lines of accepted behavior in Washington….
“Trump’s Plan to Take Jet From Qatar Heightens Corruption Concerns”
Charlie Savage for the NYT:
During President Trump’s first term, the idea that special interests and governments were buying meals and booking rooms at his hotels set off legal and ethical alarms about the potential for corruption.
Mr. Trump’s second term is making those concerns look trivial.
The administration’s plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family is only the latest example of an increasingly no-holds-barred atmosphere in Washington under Trump 2.0. Not only would the famously transactional chief executive be able to use the plane while in office, but he is also expected to transfer it to his presidential foundation once he leaves the White House.
The second Trump administration is showing striking disdain for onetime norms of propriety and for traditional legal and political guardrails around public service. It is clearly emboldened, in part because of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year that granted immunity to presidents for their official actions and because of the political reality that Mr. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party means he need not fear impeachment.
Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee raked in $239 million from wealthy business interests hoping to curry his favor or at least avoid his wrath, more than doubling the previous record, $107 million, set by his inaugural committee in 2017. There is no way to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on dinners and events, and the committee has not said what will happen to leftover funds.
Before returning to office, Mr. Trump also started a meme cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, which allows crypto investors around the world to enrich him. His family has already made millions on transaction fees, and its own reserve of the digital coin is worth billions on paper.
This month, Mr. Trump went further by auctioning off face-to-face access to himself through sales of the coin, announcing that top buyers would get a private dinner at one of his golf courses and that the largest holders would get a tour of the White House. The contest injected new interest in the coin, even though it has no intrinsic value.
The removal of such constraints extends to law enforcement.
In April, the Trump administration disbanded a Justice Department unit dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency crimes.
Earlier, Mr. Trump had also ordered the department to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it a crime for companies that operate in the United States to bribe foreign officials.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi, herself a former highly paid lobbyist for Qatar, narrowed enforcement of a law requiring lobbyists for foreign governments to register such relationships and disclose what they are paid.
The administration has not made public its legal analysis concerning the agreement with Qatar….
“A VIP Seat at Donald Trump’s Crypto Dinner Cost at Least $2 Million”
Ten days from now, 220 crypto investors will sit down to a lavish three-course dinner and enjoy “stunning views of the Potomac river” with US president Donald Trump at his 600-acre golf club in Washington, DC. To earn an invitation, all they had to do was buy a boatload of the president’s personal crypto coin.
The dinner was announced on April 23 by CIC Digital LLC—a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by the Trump family—and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which together control 80 percent of the TRUMP coin supply. They pitched it as “the most exclusive invitation in the world,” giving lucky attendees the opportunity to “hear first-hand president Trump talk about the future of crypto.”
The attendees were selected based on who had spent the most on TRUMP and held their coins the longest between the announcement date and the deadline at 1:30 pm ET today. The identities of the investors who vied for a place are concealed behind leaderboard usernames and alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses.
To win a seat under the crystal chandeliers of the great ballroom at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, the 220 qualifying attendees had to hold or purchase at least 4,196 units of the TRUMP coin—worth about $55,000 at the time of writing, WIRED calculated.
The 25 largest holders will enjoy an even more intimate experience, including a VIP tour and an “exclusive reception before dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT,” according to the website. To qualify for the reception, these VIPs held around 325,000 TRUMP coins on average, worth $4.3 million as of 1:30 pm ET.
The biggest spender, an investor going by the name Sun, topped the leaderboard with around 1.43 million TRUMP coins, worth over $19 million. (The wallet going by Sun sold nearly $1 million worth of TRUMP before the contest ended.) Many have speculated whether the wallet belongs to Chinese born billionaire Justin Sun; according to a New York Times report, the coins belong to an exchange for which Sun is a global adviser. Sun did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the scoring system favoring investors who held TRUMP coins the longest, a number of qualifying VIPs entered the competition at a late stage. In sixth place on the leaderboard, an investor going by the pseudonym Woo bought 1,000,001 coins (now worth over $13 million) on May 6 and sat on them until the end of the competition….
“Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity; When the bidding stops Monday, the top buyers of a Trump family crypto coin will win a tour of the White House.”
NYT:
The sale of face-to-face access to President Trump using the Trump family’s own cryptocurrency has done more than benefit him financially, though it has certainly done that.
Mr. Trump announced last month that leading buyers of a digital coin his family is marketing would be rewarded with a private dinner with him at one of his golf courses and that the very top bidders would win a tour of the White House.
The auction, which ends Monday, has set off a spectacle that has drawn bipartisan criticism, triggered a suspicious trading pattern, and left a sitting United States president wide open to attempts to corruptly influence him.
Since the announcement, crypto investors around the world have raced to expand their holdings of $TRUMP — a digital currency called a memecoin, which is typically treated more as a novelty investment than an actual currency.
ertain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy.
The contest has pushed up the memecoin’s trading price, adding billions of dollars, at least on paper, to the value of a $TRUMP stash controlled by the Trump family and its business partners. And in a matter of weeks, the Trumps and their partners have reeled in more than $1.3 million in fees, taking a cut every time the coins changed hands, according to Chainalysis, a crypto data firm.
Certain other large traders, sensing an opportunity to cash in, have moved quickly to sell their $TRUMP holdings, exploiting the run up in price caused by Mr. Trump’s promotional push as new money poured in from people enticed by his offer of “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
But the blitz of profit-seeking by Mr. Trump and his family is also provoking a backlash.
Last week, it helped derail a major piece of crypto legislation pending in Congress, as the sale prompted objections from crypto industry executives and lawmakers, including some Republicans.
“It does give me pause because it complicates our work here,” Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, said in an interview last week after some Democrats began to balk on the crypto bill over Mr. Trump’s involvement in the industry. “The optics are challenging.”
Trading records examined by The New York Times show that a flurry of purchases of the $TRUMP token started the day before the coin’s backers disclosed the contest. Information had leaked about the upcoming promotion, allowing certain parties to make early bets that the market price was about to jump, the records suggest.
The aggressive effort by Mr. Trump and his partners to promote the dinner has also drawn scrutiny from former securities regulators, who assert that Mr. Trump may be violating federal securities laws. However, he would almost certainly not be targeted for investigation, now that his administration has curtailed crypto enforcement efforts at both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
“This absolutely would have triggered an initial investigation,” said John Reed Stark, an enforcement attorney who spent 18 years at the S.E.C., including as chief of its unit that examined cybercrimes. “Or at least it certainly would have under norms from prior Republican and Democratic eras.”…
“Trump administration poised to accept ‘palace in the sky’ as a gift for Trump from Qatar: Sources”
In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar — a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.
The gift is expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans.
Trump toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as “a flying palace,” while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.
The highly unusual — unprecedented — arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration, and ultimately, the Trump presidential library foundation, to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power.
Anticipating those questions, sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution’s prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State…..
Jonathan Adler at Volokh: Have you ever seen an emolument fly?
“Senate Republicans raise red flags about Trump’s private dinner with his meme coin holders”
Some Senate Republicans are raising concerns about an exclusive dinner and White House tour President Donald Trump is offering top investors in his $TRUMP meme token.
“This is my president that we’re talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, who has been spearheading a legislative push on cryptocurrency regulation in the Senate.
The official website for Trump’s meme coin announced last week that the top 220 holders of the coin are invited to an “intimate private dinner” with the president at his golf club outside of Washington, D.C., later this month. The top 25 investors will also receive an invitation to a “VIP White House Tour” the following day, according to the website. The $TRUMP meme coin surged more than 50% after the dinner news broke, boosting its total market value to $2.7 billion.
The offer of access to the president for those who invest in an organization that funds Trump’s personal fortune has sparked scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who often bucks her party, expressed uneasiness about the event, though she noted she didn’t have all of the details.
“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour.” Murkowski told NBC News on Thursday.
While using untraceable crypto currency to pay for access to the president raised questions for some senators, there are no laws barring Trump and the organization from proceeding as planned.
“He’s got to remember that he’s living there, but it’s the people’s house, right?” Murkowski added.
Lummis, a staunch ally of the president, said Wednesday in an interview that she thinks Congress needs to regulate standards around the use of digital assets like meme coins. Meme coins, often referred to as meme tokens, are a subset of digital assets that use blockchain technology and derive their value largely from internet culture rather than from an underlying utility or asset.
“This is the Wild West, and so when I hear things like this, my reaction is, we need to legislate so there are rules.” Lummis said. …
“A fund backed by Abu Dhabi . . . would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.”
The corruption isn’t hidden; it’s right in front of our eyes:
Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.
That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.
Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.
Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.
MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.
And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate….
“Meet the top donors to Trump’s $239 million inauguration fund”
President Donald Trump raised a record $239 million for his 2025 inauguration celebrations, propelled by contributions from corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals — including more than a dozen people Trump has nominated to a variety of roles in his administration.
Inaugural celebrations have become an opportunity for companies and wealthy individuals to support parties orpresidents-elect and to seek to curry favor with incoming administrations. In the most recent inauguration, Trump hauled in more than double the record he set in 2017.
Donors to his inaugural committee included picks for ambassadorships, members of Trump’s Cabinet and firms engaged in actions with federal agencies or those looking for favorable regulatory decisions, according to a Washington Post analysis ofa filing the inaugural committee made to the Federal Election Commission on Sunday.Some companies have sought to influence the new administration’s policies on trade, taxes and government spending.
“Trump to Host Dinner With Top Holders of His Memecoin”
President Donald Trump will have dinner with the top 220 holders of the Trump memecoin, the issuers of the cryptocurrency announced on Wednesday.
At the “intimate private dinner” on May 22 at his private club in Washington, Trump will talk about the future of crypto, according to the organizers. People who want to participate have to register, and a leader board of the top Trump coin holders will be kept to determine attendees. The top 25 Trump coin holders will also be invited to a reception before the dinner with the president, and will be given a tour of the White House.
“From April 23 to May 12, your average $TRUMP balance determines your spot,” according to the Website advertising the dinner. “Get $Trump Memes and climb the ranks.”
“Workers Say They Were Pressured to Pay for N.Y.C. Election Jobs”
Shayla Colon at the New York Times:
When a Republican employee of the New York City Board of Elections told a woman that if she paid $150, she could have a job working at the polls during local elections, the woman hesitated but eventually agreed.
Unable to afford the fee on her own, she said she went to her husband, who gave her the money, even though he felt uneasy about the deal.
The small payment, she said, seemed worth it for the chance to earn a few thousand dollars for election work.
Poll workers in the Bronx say her experience was not unusual — and that it has been going on for years.
The woman is among several election workers who say that Board of Elections staff members and officials of the Bronx Republican Party inappropriately pressured them into paying for jobs or that they saw their peers similarly pressured. Three people who paid for their positions spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.
“Trump Pauses Enforcement of Law Banning Foreign Bribery”
President Trump on Monday ordered a pause in the enforcement of a federal law aimed at curbing corruption in multinational companies, saying it creates an uneven playing field for American firms.
The law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, makes it illegal for companies that operate in the United States to pay foreign government officials to secure business deals. Though the law was enacted in 1977, federal authorities have more heavily enforced it since around 2005, cracking down on bribery, especially in countries where it is a common business practice.
Mr. Trump has objected to the law, which has led to charges and huge fines against some of the world’s largest companies. In November, U.S. prosecutors accused Gautam Adani, the Indian tycoon, of bribing Indian officials and charged him with fraud. His company has called those claims “baseless.”
Companies that have paid fines under the act include the engineering conglomerate Siemens and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. In 2020, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay more than $2.9 billion to resolve charges that employees at its Malaysian subsidiary had paid $1 billion in bribes to foreign officials.
The law has been “abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States,” Mr. Trump’s executive order on Monday said, adding that its enforcement was impeding foreign policy objectives.
The order bars federal authorities from starting any new investigations under the act or enforcing new actions for 180 days. The administration will also review existing investigations launched under the act, it said, to “restore proper bounds” on the law.
It also directs the attorney general to issue new guidance on how to enforce the act “that promotes American competitiveness and efficient use of federal law enforcement resources.”…
“Paramount in Settlement Talks With Trump Over ’60 Minutes’ Lawsuit” (Political Wire: Trump’s Lawsuit Settlements Look a Lot Like Bribery)
When Donald J. Trump sued CBS for $10 billion days before the 2024 election, accusing the company of deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, many legal experts dismissed the litigation as a far-fetched attempt to punish an out-of-favor news outlet.
Now Mr. Trump is back in the White House, and many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling the lawsuit would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with another company, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.
Settlement discussions between representatives of Paramount and Mr. Trump are now underway, according to three people with knowledge of the talks. There is no assurance, though, that they will result in a deal, and it is unclear what the terms of any such deal might include.
Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, strongly supports the effort to settle, according to two people with knowledge of her thinking. Ms. Redstone stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount, the media empire founded by her father Sumner Redstone, in a deal with Skydance, an entertainment company backed by the billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David.
A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation.
It could also cause an uproar within CBS News and among the “60 Minutes” staff. Journalists at the network have expressed deep concern about the notion of their parent company settling litigation that they consider tantamount to a politician’s standard-issue gripes about a news organization’s editorial judgment, according to several people familiar with internal discussions….
Donald Trump may have found a new way to funnel cash into his pockets while serving as president—by turning litigation into a lucrative business model.
It started with ABC News, which agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit by paying $15 million to Trump’s future foundation and another $1 million to cover his legal fees.
Then Meta followed suit, forking over $25 million to Trump’s presidential library to resolve a 2021 lawsuit he filed against the company.
Now, Paramount—the parent company of CBS—is reportedly negotiating a settlement in a lawsuit Trump brought over what he claims was a “deceptively edited” 60 Minutes interview.
There are also reports that X wants to settle a lawsuit Trump brought when the social network was still called Twitter.
The pattern raises an obvious question: Has Trump effectively created a legal mechanism to extract money from corporations under the guise of litigation?
If these settlements serve as a backdoor way for companies to curry favor with the president, they look an awful lot like bribery—except with the thin veneer of legality….