Local opinion: Billionaires, power and profit collide in Washington

It is all in the open now. Perhaps President Trump sees the walls closing in as poll numbers sink and the odds of a Democratic House and Senate rise. Or he is so out of touch that he would unabashedly take $1.7 billion from taxpayers and fear no consequences. Here’s the alleged grift: Trump files a lawsuit against the government he leads for $10 billion, claiming investigations of him — several of which yielded convictions — were an illegal overreach by the Justice Department. When that case is immediately thrown out of court, he demands negotiations with his own Justice appointees, who then announce a settlement of almost $2 billion. That’s how Trump negotiates with Trump and swells his own bankroll at the expense of taxpayers. It’s the kind of heist that would put Willie Sutton to shame.

No matter how much success the president has enjoyed, it has never been enough. His life instead has been built on the shaky structure of pretension. No matter how much attention he got in the New York tabloids, he was never accepted by the city’s social establishment. He rode a self-generated wave of falsehoods and exaggerations into huge loans for his real estate and casino deals, many of which went sour. He desperately wanted to be seen as part of the billionaire class, but as he entered the presidential race, his true wealth was hard to nail down. His terms in office, particularly his second term, have been defined by allegations of corruption in his chase for ever more wealth. As time goes on, the Trump administration looks less like a government and more like a mafia family. If this so-called settlement survives public outrage, the Trumps will be the only family in America that can’t be audited and pays what it wants.

This is just part of the larger scam, which, according to tracking by the Center for American Progress, has already yielded $2.6 billion.

Here are other ways Trump and his friends are cashing in.

Cryptocurrency: According to credible reports, the Trump family has netted $1 billion in the sale of digital assets. This is achieved through a firm named World Liberty Financial, which provides a vehicle for interested parties, perhaps even foreign governments, to buy favor with the president.

Real estate deals: Trump has used his political position to expand real estate ventures throughout the world, including hotels and golf courses. Those seeking favor are welcome to use his brand for a price.

Insider trading: In the first quarter of the year alone, Trump has executed more than 3,600 stock trades, including placing bets on defense contractors while the United States is engaged in wars. The president claims that his stock portfolio is managed by a third party that makes decisions independently.

The son-in-law gambit: Jared Kushner is Trump’s handyman who works both as a negotiator and collector of investment revenue for a family private equity fund named Affinity Partners. Kushner has roamed through the Middle East collecting almost $3 billion from foreign sovereign wealth funds, some from countries directly involved in negotiations with the Trump administration. According to PBS, the fund has grown to $6 billion and has paid Jared and Ivanka between $172 million and $640 million in annual income.

When Trump is not padding his pocket directly, he is working hard for the billionaire club he brought to power. He began by signing the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which, among other outrages, gave the top 1% a collective tax break of $117 billion. For the oil companies, he has crushed every effort to advance America into the age of clean energy and left America in the exhaust fumes of China’s modern cars. He slashed corporate taxes and doubled estate tax exemptions. He either ignored antitrust laws or used them to allow monopolies to buy up the airwaves and combine pricing power over essential products. Precious public lands are on the block.

Yes, everything in Washington these days is for sale.

As bad as things are, history teaches us that periods of greed always end. And when they do, reforms soon follow. Unlike the leaders of what Mark Twain termed “The Gilded Age,” men like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie, who were engaged in industrializing the country, today’s billionaire class has little commitment to America other than a safe harbor for its wealth. When the backlash to this historical heist comes, it will come with a fury not imagined today.