Trump family deal spree could open door for future presidents to profit from office

https://apnews.com/article/trump-organization-crypto-conflict-eric-deals-863d8850f536df291391e949ba1bc00e

NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, presidents avoided even the appearance of profiting from their office.

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President Donald Trump is taking a different approach.

The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.

Led by Eric, and his brother, Donald Jr., the family business has expanded into cryptocurrencies with ventures that brought in billions of dollars but raised questions about whether some big investors received favorable treatment in return.

The brothers have also joined or invested in a number of companies that aim to do business with the government their father runs. Last month, they struck a deal giving them stakes worth millions in an armed drone maker seeking contracts with the Pentagon and with Gulf states under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.


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The problem of conflicts of interest goes back a decade to when Trump first ran for office, but some government ethics experts and historians argue it’s more pressing than ever as conflicts pile up in his second term that they consider unprecedented, blatant and dangerous to democracy.

“I don’t think there’s any line right now between policy decisions and political calculations and the interest of the Trump family,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University.