Clawing back Trump’s stolen money will be the stuff of tin-pot legend: Frum

U.S. President Donald Trump walks at Newark Liberty International Airport as he travels en route to Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., August 7, 2026.

Former Republican speechwriter David Frum says Americans are not accustomed reclaiming stolen or swindled wealth from fallen authoritarian rulers. But, thankfully, a host of scruffy kleptocratic (or former kleptocratic) nations Nigeria, Peru and the Philippines can provide lessons on how to go about it.

It’s a shame that the grift and self-enrichment of the Trump family has thrown the U.S. into a class with recovering, somewhat notorious, democracies, but that’s what Americans voted for in electing a convicted felon, and that’s what the Republican Party then enabled by surrendering its congressional duties, Frum told the Atlantic.

However, “done right, this work can deliver justice and strengthen democratic institutions for the long run,” he said. “But cleaning up after a corrupt regime also comes with serious challenges and hazards.”

President Donald Trump has abused his office to enrich himself and his family in ways that are completely unprecedented, said Frum, “not only in the United States but also in the history of almost any peer democracy.”

Only Italy’s lawless former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi compares, and Berlusconi was sentenced to prison.

“Trump faces little danger of prison,” said Frum, adding that the Republican-led U.S. Supreme Court has “bestowed substantial criminal impunity on him, even assuming that he leaves office in 2029 as required by the Constitution. … But an ex-president remains subject to civil liability, and the proceeds of bribery, extortion, insider trading, and market manipulation may be exposed to civil penalties. Other countries have shown the way.”

Alberto Fujimori, who was elected president of Peru in 1990, dissolved that nation’s Congress and the Supreme Court and rewrote Peru’s constitution to allow his own reelection in 1995. Then came the self-enrichment. His intelligence chief ran a system of embezzlement and kickbacks that “amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts.” Just after Fujimori’s 2000 reelection to a third term, he fled the country. But Peru set up a special prosecutor’s office and worked closely with countries hosting Fujimori’s contested assets.

“Peru has since recovered about $200 million of misappropriated wealth from accounts in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, the United States, and Luxembourg,” said Frum.

And then there’s Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged billions of dollars over two decades.

“After his ouster, his democratically elected successor, Corazon Aquino, created a Presidential Commission on Good Government to recover this stolen wealth,” said Frum. “As of 2022, the PCGG had returned $5 billion to the Philippines, according to reporting by the country’s leading English-language newspaper.”

Over in Nigeria, leader Sani Abacha swiped about $4 billion, stashing the funds in foreign accounts and shell companies. Again came a new specialized unit in 2002, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, to reclaim the money from Abacha’s heirs.

“This work received considerable help from the Swiss government, which agreed to freeze Abacha-related accounts, and from the United States, which cracked down on Abacha-owned shell companies,” said Frum. “Nigeria got back about $1.5 billion, according to the World Bank’s tally.”

“The message to Americans? The recovery of corrupt assets from fallen leaders is not hopeless, but it is difficult and risky,” said Frum. “This work demands permanent institutions specifically tasked to investigate and prosecute, and broad international cooperation to locate, identify, seize, and return dirty money.”

But it has to happen, he insisted, because “if the Trump family can keep the money it has accumulated this term, the next generation of Trumps will be far richer than Donald Trump ever was.”

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