How Profits Took Over American Politics
On Feb. 27, around the time he was giving the order to launch military strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump gathered at Mar-a-Lago with super PAC donors paying $1 million per plate. Buying access to Trump in exchange for campaign donations is only one of several ways to curry favor with the president. It is also easier than ever to funnel money directly into his family’s own pockets, as reporting about their crypto interests has revealed. As such, concerns about the potential for corruption at the highest levels of public office are have increased.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]But the truth is that this problem is bigger than any single political figure, even one who looms as large as the current occupant of the Oval Office.
To be sure, Trump has certainly broken new ground when it comes to such concerns. According to data from the Federal Election Commission, analyzed by my colleagues at The Brennan Center, Trump’s super PAC, MAGA, Inc., has raised over $300 million since the 2024 election. That’s more than five times the previous fundraising record for a second-term president, almost all from donors giving $1 million or more. The data shows that the money is pouring in from leaders of the crypto and fossil fuel industries; other businesspeople whose companies hold large government contracts; and wealthy individuals who have received key administration appointments or even presidential pardons for family members. One pardoned corporate executive even touted his mother’s campaign donations in his application.
Recent reporting also shows that the Trump family has made considerable profits during his time in office, though exact estimates vary due to different measuring criteria and the lack of publicly available information. In Aug. 2025, The New Yorker reported that the Trump family had potentially profited to the tune of $3.4 billion. By Jan. 2026, the New Yorker said that figure had ballooned to $4 billion.
“Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion,” reported The New York Times. “We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view.”
These figures are worrying on multiple levels. Unlike donations to MAGA, Inc., for example, crypto money can come from foreign nationals seeking favorable treatment from the administration. Take the case of Chinese billionaire Justin Sun, who reportedly purchased more than $90 million in Trump cryptocurrencies. A few months after he “started investing in Trump’s cryptocurrencies” a SEC fraud case against him “was put on hold pending the outcome of settlement talks,” according to Bloomberg. (Both sides denied any impropriety.)
It can also come from foreign governments. For instance, the Wall Street Journal reported that the United Arab Emirates won access to America’s most advanced and closely guarded computer chip technology—and that this came after a UAE government official purchased a 49% stake in the family’s main crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. The deal reportedly netted the Trumps $187 million and another $31 million for entities affiliated with the family of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Yet it would be a mistake to think this trend begins and ends with the president—or is unique to one party.
Other presidents have courted campaign donations from billionaires. The main super PAC associated with Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign significantly outraised Trump in 2020, and both parties increased their reliance on the largest donors (those giving $5 million or more) in the 2024 presidential race. Both parties have also relied increasingly on dark money from undisclosed sources, with the majority of dark money spending in the 2024 presidential race going to back Vice President Kamala Harris. And wealthy donors to both parties have long shaped government policy. For instance, between 1875 and 1885, one Gilded Age railroad company spent approximately $500,000 (equivalent to approximately $15 million today) currying the favor of government officials each year.
Trump also does not have a monopoly on self-enrichment, an issue that goes beyond the executive. Members of Congress from both parties appear to have used their access to significant nonpublic information to profit from stock trading. Supreme Court justices have accepted lavish gifts from people with business before the Court.
Disturbingly few of these entanglements are explicitly illegal.
Today’s fusion of private wealth and political power stems in part from a half-century of what many view as misguided Supreme Court decisions. The most famous of these rulings, Citizens United, overturned longstanding limits on independent campaign expenditures by corporations and paved the way for super PACs.
The resulting collapse of campaign finance rules has combined with a resurgence in the sort of high-level self-dealing that was pervasive during the Gilded Age, when bribery and graft were common, and corporations used their wealth to secure monopolies, government subsidies, and other benefits.
As in the past, the question now is who will offer Americans a real alternative, including a commitment to stamp out self-dealing in all three branches of the government. That should begin with a constitutional amendment to restore reasonable campaign finance limits previously gutted by the Supreme Court. It must also include limiting the president’s pardon power to prevent favorable treatment of political allies, an absolute ban on political spending by large government contractors looking to secure contracts, and eliminating congressional stock trading, among other reforms. All of these will require Congress to take decisive action. There is no alternative.
For a representative democracy like ours to work, citizens must have some confidence that, through voting and other forms of political engagement, they have a fighting chance to turn their priorities into government policy. Far too many Americans have lost that faith, and they identify pervasive corruption at the top of our government as a big part of the reason. But cycles of corruption followed by reform are an enduring feature of American history.
A new round of ambitious reform is overdue.