All the President's Profits

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2026

All the President’s Profits

Americans already pay the president to work for them; they shouldn’t have to outbid his family’s customers just to get his attention.

The American historian Shelby Foote said that Ulysses S. Grant had “4:00-in-the-morning courage.” He described Grant as a general who could be awakened before dawn and told that an enemy had turned his army’s right flank, yet remain calm enough to handle it. Before giving Grant command of the Union forces, Abraham Lincoln reportedly said, “No general yet found can face the arithmetic,” describing the extreme casualties needed to press the war to a close. Grant was his man.

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1869

Such courage and willingness to do what was needed, despite the costs, would serve him throughout his remaining years, including his presidency. In 1869, during Grant’s first year as president, two financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, tried to use access to Grant for financial advantage. Their plan was to buy enough gold to drive up its price, then turn around and sell at a huge profit. One thing stood in the way: the risk that the Treasury would sell government gold, increase the supply, and bring down the price.

To overcome this hurdle, they turned to Abel Corbin, Grant’s brother-in-law and a co-conspirator in the deal. Knowingly joining the scheme, he helped arrange meetings with Grant and supported the financiers’ arguments against any Treasury sales. Their reasoning to President Grant was this: higher gold prices would help improve the market for American crops overseas. They failed to mention their own financial interests.

Fortunately, Grant recognized the scheme and did what someone with Grant’s nerves could do: he authorized a $4 million gold sale (roughly $100 million in today’s purchasing power). The gold price collapsed, wiping out many investors’ fortunes and disrupting trade. Corbin lost heavily, but Gould, who had been selling before the crash, escaped with his fortune.

While Grant’s response to corruption was a bit uneven throughout his tenure, and his administration saw serious scandals, he showed he would use federal power when necessary to take down a scheme, even when it involved his own family.

Less than 20 years later, the investment firm Grant & Ward collapsed under what we might now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant and his son invested alongside Ferdinand Ward, who used Grant’s reputation to attract investors, then used new investments to pay earlier ones, took money for himself, and destroyed the firm. Grant lent his name, not his management, and his family’s finances were ruined by the fiasco.

Although he had previously resisted writing his memoirs, the financial status of his family forced his hand, and he began drafting accounts of his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, specifically explaining in his later memoirs: “I consented for the money it gave me; for at that moment I was living upon borrowed money.”

The work suited him, and he expanded it into a two-volume memoir that would restore his family’s fortune, even though he wrote some of the final volume after his throat cancer had taken his ability to speak. He completed the final handwritten pages only days before his death in 1885. Grant (with Mark Twain's help) secured a generous percentage of the profits, and this restored his family’s financial security through the work he completed while dying.

Grant’s memoirs had commercial value because of his public career. But what happens when a presidential family or associates can create commercial value from the authority the president currently exercises?

Scanning headlines shows plenty of activity that could easily qualify as commercialization of the office…

Today, presidential access appears in cryptocurrency advertising for the $TRUMP Coin Club, which promotes a November 22 dinner at Trump National near Washington for its 185 highest-ranked qualifying holders. The top 29 are offered a VIP reception with the president. Rankings are dependent on both the number of coins held and how long participants hold them. The terms exclude private meetings with Trump, and organizers reserve the right to cancel the event. Buyers boost rankings by holding their crypto, while affiliated companies may sell under preannounced plans. All buyers bear the risk of falling prices, and the president’s physical presence is part of the sales pitch.

In another crypto-related instance, World Liberty Financial pays a Trump-linked company for promotion and use of the Trump name. Under the agreement, the company receives 75% of the revenue remaining after agreed expenses and an initial amount set aside for the business. World Liberty WLFI token holders get a vote on some project decisions, but don’t own any part of the business or its income. The company tied to Trump can collect money from token sales even if buyers lose money as tokens fall in value.

World Liberty Financial also shares owners with a proposed bank called World Liberty Trust Company. The bank is seeking permission from Trump administration regulators to issue USD1, a dollar-backed cryptocurrency, and to also hold customers’ digital assets. On August 14, it received preliminary, conditional approval and is awaiting final approval. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it reviewed the application under established rules. A business connected to the president is seeking permission to expand its operations from regulators currently serving in the president’s administration.

On October 22, an astonishing lawsuit emerged around World Liberty Financial. A shareholder in a rival crypto firm, Circle, sued Trump and World Liberty Financial. The suit alleges that deals with entities tied to the UAE violated the Constitution’s restrictions on benefits from foreign governments. It centers on payments from the sale of a stake in World Liberty and the income generated when a UAE investment firm used its USD1 currency to make a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance. World Liberty denies any wrongdoing, and the White House denies any conflict of interest.

$2.3B

In a June report, Reuters estimated that four crypto ventures had added at least $2.3 billion to the Trump family fortune through sales and business holdings, with little of the family’s capital at risk. By the end of April, investors in those same ventures were down a combined $2.3 billion, including losses on investments they still held.

In an emailed statement for Reuters’ June report, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American People.”

The financial ties also reach officials helping write the administration’s crypto policies and rules. Bo Hines helped to advance stablecoin legislation while retaining a one-third stake in consulting firm Nxum. Nxum received $6.3 million through a marketing arrangement with Tether, a firm that issues USDT (a cryptocurrency designed to stay worth one U.S. dollar per token). Payments began during Hine’s White House work and continued after. Nxum has stated that Hines was unaware of and uninvolved in the business, and received no Tether-derived funds while in the administration. On October 22, Senator Richard Blumenthal requested Tether’s contracts, payment records, and communications concerning Nxum and Hines, asking the firm to respond by November 3.

Those seeking pardons also pay for help from those with access to the president. While Trump’s first term saw only 144 pardons and 94 commutations, or 238 clemency grants in four years, by September 2026, Reuters reported clemency grants for over 1,700 people, less than 20 months into his second term. (January 6th defendants account for most of the increase.)

In the same report, Reuters identifies 290 advocates who secured clemency for 197 recipients. Those familiar with recent cases said intermediaries with access to Trump’s inner circle could charge as much as $2 million for their work. For example, JM Burkman & Associates reported $960,000 in lobbying income for work done on behalf of Joseph Schwartz, with the July 2025 filing stating the purpose as “Seeking a federal pardon.”

On October 20, The New York Times broke the story that a company founded by Isabela Herrera, daughter of Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini, had guaranteed Alina Habba over $50 million in salary and bonuses over four years to serve as general counsel. Habba was Trump’s former personal attorney; Herrera was seeking a presidential pardon.

Velutini had been charged in an alleged scheme to bribe Puerto Rico’s governor, in which he asked for a regulator investigating one of his banks to be removed. He pleaded not guilty to the felony charges, then guilty to a misdemeanor campaign-finance offense in an agreement with the Justice Department (dating to August 2025).

In late October 2025, Herrera established Concord Partners in Florida. Just days later, Habba finalized her employment agreement with the firm. At the time, she was still serving as U.S. attorney in New Jersey. On January 1, she began work for Concord, and within a few weeks Trump had pardoned Velutini. By then, Habba had become senior Justice Department adviser tasked with overseeing U.S. attorneys.

According to the Times, her status as a special government employee permitted outside employment, subject to conflict-of-interest restrictions. Some familiar with the contract told the Times, they believed she had been hired to help get the pardon. She has denied this and said Justice vetted her employment. The White House also denies she played any part. Habba has declined to comment on her work for Concord, with its business remaining unclear even to some associated with other Velutini family businesses.

The family wanted a decision that only the president could make. The scale and timing of Habba’s contract raise the question of what the family expected: legal services, help reaching the president, or both.

On October 20, Senator Blumenthal also requested records from White House ballroom donors, including Herrera. He asked who solicited their contributions, what agreements accompanied them, and what contact donors had with the administration.

By this fall, 21 months into Trump’s second term, it's clear questions must be asked. In September, Senator John Curtis (a Republican) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate past and present presidential families and their use of their connections for private financial gain, and urged subpoenas for Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. Senator Dick Durbin (a Democrat) supported his effort and proposed a November hearing. “That concern should not depend on which party controls the White House,” Senator Curtis said.

That concern should not depend on which party controls the White House.

SENATOR JOHN CURTIS, SEPTEMBER 2026

This came on the heels of revelations that Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations had been paid for by a Russian oligarch. The wedding gift simply added to much broader concerns about whether the Trumps’ crypto ventures, investments in defense contractors, and overseas property deals had turned presidential connections into private profits. Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine had already drawn years of scrutiny.

In 1869, U.S. Grant’s brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, had money riding on a presidential decision. Grant decided against him and ordered a gold sale anyway. The family connection helped Corbin and his co-conspirators reach the president, but it didn't protect their interests.

Today, people seeking presidential decisions may have become income sources for the president’s family and associates. The White House repeatedly insists the public’s interests always come first, though it is becoming harder to accept. Americans already pay the president to work for them; they shouldn’t have to outbid his family’s customers just to get his attention.

Faithfully,