Week 19: “We Reject Regulators.” Pardon Me?
Welcome to week nineteen of the Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar, where we highlight examples of corporate corruption shaping the Trump administration’s agenda and their material impact on everyday people. Read our first eighteen issues here and follow us on Bluesky and X for updates.
This week the Trump administration deepened its wildly corrupt and lucrative crypto grift, sought to further enrich wealthy supporters at the direct expense of working households, and continued to pardon white-collar criminals who don the red MAGA cap. Also, don’t believe the hype about Musk’s DOGE “departure;” Elon Chainsawhands remains a massive threat to democracy and humanity.
TRUMP AND CO. RIDE THE CRYPTO TRAIN, AGAIN
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on Thursday launched an investigation to identify who attended the private dinner that Trump held to reward the top 220 investors in his meme coin. This is a welcome move. The public needs to know who exactly has bought access to the president. The only problem is that the $TRUMP dinner happened last week, and Trump has already made progress on other crypto scams in the meantime. It’s hard to keep up with the stunning growth of his family’s crypto empire.
Bitcoin Binge
On Tuesday, Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, announced that it has raised $2.5 billion from 50 unnamed investors to buy Bitcoin. This comes as the White House is moving forward with a plan to create a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile,” dismantling existing financial guardrails, and pushing Congress to pass crypto-friendly legislation that stands to benefit the Trump family and its allies in tech and finance.
Read this piece by Sludge’s David Moore for the full scoop. It includes nuggets like this: “Cantor Fitzgerald, the family-run investment firm of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, last month announced a merger to form a new Bitcoin holding company, an entity valued at $3.6 billion. The firm has been deepening its Bitcoin investments this year.”
On Wednesday, Trump’s sons and Vice President JD Vance spoke at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas. “We reject regulators,” Vance said during his keynote speech, according to The Washington Post. What a succinct distillation of the abundance Trump agenda.
Our executive director, Jeff Hauser, recently denounced Senate Democrats for helping Republicans pass pro-crypto legislation earlier this month, arguing that they’re missing a golden opportunity to make Trump’s corruption infamous.
“We have American hospitals that get shut down, we have elderly people who are being scammed out of their life savings, and this is all made possible by a crypto industry that Trump is unleashing because it is how Trump is becoming a genuine mega billionaire,” Jeff told HuffPost. “Democrats voting for Trump’s bill, that really undercuts the notion that this is abhorrent behavior and one on which you can make a partisan distinction.”
TRUMP NEVER CHICKENS OUT WHEN IT COMES TO DOING A REVERSE ROBIN HOOD
When Trump complained on the campaign trail about the cost of housing and energy, most people assumed that he wanted to make them cheaper. Trump’s actions in office, however, suggest he may have been lamenting that shelter and electricity weren’t expensive enough. A true friend, always looking out for his Wall Street and fossil fuel industry buddies.
Trump Seeks To Privatize Fannie And Freddie: Higher Mortgage Rates For Millions Could Mean Millions Of Dollars For Billionaire Trump Donor Bill Ackman
On Tuesday, Trump proposed privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. mortgage market. Progressive economist Dean Baker warned Wednesday that “making Fannie and Freddie private will raise mortgage interest rates,” and that’s exactly what happened on Thursday.
That clearly hurts prospective homebuyers. So who stands to benefit from the privatization of Fannie and Freddie? According to Baker, “Possibly the people who own lots of stock in the companies, like big Trump backer Bill Ackman.”
Check out my colleague Jacob Plaza’s detailed summary of how Ackman and other billionaire hedge fund investors who have bet on GSE privatization would make a killing from Trump’s proposal, while workers’ quest for affordable housing would become even more difficult.
Trump’s Fraudulent “Energy Emergency” Is Keeping Coal Alive—And Jacking Up Utility Bills In Michigan
One of the many executive orders Trump signed on Inauguration Day was a declaration of a “national energy emergency” that has no basis in reality. Nevertheless, Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked that bogus directive last week when he issued an emergency order to force the continued operation of a coal-fired power plant in Michigan.
The J.H. Campbell plant in West Olive was scheduled to shut down on May 31 as part of a transition to clean energy. But thanks to Wright’s order, it will remain operational. Wright cited the need to reduce blackout risks “ahead of the high electricity demand expected this summer.”
However, Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, rejected Wright’s reasoning. “We currently produce more energy in Michigan than needed,” Scripps said in a statement. “As a result, there is no existing energy emergency in either Michigan or [the Midcontinent Independent System Operator].” This begs the question: Is Wright’s warning about rising demand related to the ongoing boom in energy-intensive AI data centers?
According to Scripps, Wright’s “unnecessary” move “will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the Midwest.” As our friend Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, put it, “Forcing ratepayers in Michigan to pay to keep the inefficient, expensive, and polluting J.H. Campbell coal power plant operational is a radical abuse of the Federal Power Act’s emergency authorities.”
THE DON DOES FAVORS FOR HIS MAGA FRIENDS
Trump went on a “clemency spree” this week, announcing pardons for several convicted felons, most of whom are Trump allies who engaged in white-collar crime. “No MAGA left behind,” Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s newly sworn-in pardon attorney, wrote on Twitter.
Among the people Trump pardoned this week are:
Scott Jenkins, a former Virginia sheriff, who was sentenced in 2024 to 10 years in prison for taking $75,000 in exchange for appointing people as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. (Jenkins’ rookie mistake was taking bribes in cash; doesn’t he know this is what crypto is for?);
Paul Walczak, a recently convicted tax cheat, was spared from an 18-month prison sentence and having to pay a $4.4 million penalty after his mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1-million-per-person fundraising dinner last month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago palace;
Former reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted in 2022 of dodging taxes and defrauding banks of more than $36 million to support their extravagant lifestyle;
Imaad Zuberi, a major donor to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, saw his 12-year sentence for lobbying, campaign finance, and tax law violations commuted;
Former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), who resigned from Congress in 2015 following a tax fraud conviction; and
Former Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who resigned in 2004 amid a corruption scandal.
Trump’s DOJ Is Greenlighting Corruption By Trump Allies
Regarding the apparent quid pro quo involving Walczak’s mother, New York magazine’s Margaret Hartmann wrote that “being a Trump supporter isn’t necessarily a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but it may be a ‘get out of jail for a hefty donation’ card.”
Meanwhile, Jenkins lobbied for a pardon by claiming that he was being persecuted for his conservative political beliefs. Trump asserted on Truth Social that Jenkins was the victim of a “corrupt,” “weaponized,” and “overzealous” Biden Justice Department.
“It’s clear that this administration doesn’t believe that tamping down on public corruption is a priority,” Stacey Young, a former Justice Department official, told NBC News. “Pardoning a sheriff who took cash for deputy badges is just the latest in a string of actions this president has taken to undermine any effort to hold officials accountable to the public they are sworn to serve.”
IS TOM HOMAN, TRUMP’S BORDER CZAR, COMPROMISED?
He Moved From ICE To Geo Group Back To ICE—And Is Now Pushing For A Huge Expansion Of Private Detention Facilities
The Washington Post reported this week that Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar and one of the leading figures in the administration’s cruel effort to detain and deport millions of immigrants, was was a paid consultant for Geo Group—one of two firms that manage most immigrant detention facilities in the U.S.—in the two years preceding his government appointment. During the first Trump administration, Homan, a quintessential revolver, was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Homan’s recent income from Geo raises questions about whether his private-sector work is influencing the administration’s push to round up and deport immigrants—an effort that relies heavily on private detention facility operators that contract with ICE,” the Post noted.
“In his return to government, Homan has championed a dramatic expansion of the nation’s immigrant detention system, which he says needs at least 100,000 beds to accommodate the large numbers of undocumented immigrants the administration plans to deport,” the newspaper reported. “Much of the increased capacity is expected to come through new contracts with Geo and its main competitor, CoreCivic, which together own at least 16 idle facilities that they have said they hope to reopen as immigrant detention centers.”
Ethics expert Richard Painter asked, “Was he being consulted to line up these contracts with the Trump administration right before he entered the Trump administration?” Making matters even fishier, Geo Group contributed $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee.
MORE PROOF MUSK ISN’T REALLY LEAVING
DOGE Is Expanding Use Of Grok AI
If you’ve read my colleague Will Royce’s latest in The American Prospect, you already know why you shouldn’t believe the claim that Elon Musk has quit his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for good. As Will explains, there are at least 46 reasons to be skeptical; that’s how many DOGE agents “have direct financial or professional ties” to Musk, according to RDP research. There are technically 45 of them now since Musk’s right-hand man, Steve Davis, joined his boss on the way out. The guy couldn’t last a single day on his own! (I highly recommend reading Will’s article, if for no other reason than to learn how pathetic Musk’s followers are.) The remaining Musk loyalists are still firmly entrenched in DOGE’s austerity and privatization scheme, which is of course supported by Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought.
In any case, here’s another reason to be skeptical of Musk’s much-ballyhooed exit: DOGE is allegedly expanding its use of Grok, Reuters reports. Grok is the name of the AI chatbot developed by Musk’s xAI corporation. DOGE’s reported use of the tool raises concerns about conflicts-of-interest and privacy. As Reuters noted, it could give Musk, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, “access to valuable nonpublic federal contracting data at agencies he privately does business with or be used to help train Grok.”
(Coincidentally, a recent report published by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was found to be riddled with errors attributable to OpenAI, which is led by Musk’s archrival Sam Altman.)
Musk Is Preparing To Cash In On Trump’s “Golden Dome” Missile Defense Scam
Regardless of whether Musk has an office in White House, he’s poised to remain a conspicuous presence in the federal government for the foreseeable future by dint of his position as the world’s richest man and a major contractor (one now armed with intimate, nonpublic information about his competitors). Musk wasn’t in the Oval Office when Trump announced his new “Golden Dome” missile shield, but “he didn’t have to be,” Joe Cirincione wrote for The New Republic. “He had already maneuvered his companies to benefit substantially from the $25 billion Trump said he would spend immediately and the hundreds of billions in federal contracts the new effort will spawn.”
Resource updates this week include:
The Continued Decline of White Collar Prosecutions
For more on our work tracking the Trump-Musk administration, visit DogeWatch.
And if you’ve got any tips on DOGE personnel or updates to any of our DogeWatch trackers, reach out to us at revolvingdoorproject@protonmail.com.
Raskin is a Maryland Representative