Trump demands airport be named after him in exchange for federal funding
After the 2024 election, four companies — ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X — committed a total of at least $63 million to a fund for a Trump presidential library to settle lawsuits claiming their platforms had defamed or otherwise impeded his campaign. But after the library fund dissolved last year, Congressional Democrats are now looking into where the money went.
On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Representative Melanie Stansbury issued letters to the leaders of the companies, demanding information about the terms of the agreement and the status of the funds.
Under the original settlements, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund was supposed to receive a portion of the $63 million. Then after failing to file a mandatory annual report, it was administratively dissolved by Florida officials, with files of dissolution formally submitted by the fund’s incorporating lawyer a few months later.
“Now,” wrote lawmakers, “it is unclear where this money has gone, exacerbating concerns about corruption that were apparent at the time of the settlement.”
A second fund for a Trump library reported in December that it had received $50 million in donations, but did not clarify whether these funds came from the original settlements.
This is hardly the first time Trump and his allies have fallen under scrutiny for questions about donors and corruption. Recently, ProPublica released a trove of documents detailing financial links between administration officials and the industries they’re tasked with regulating. In May last year, Trump received a Boeing 747 worth $400 million from the Qatari government in a deal described as “the definition of corruption," and there is ongoing skepticism toward Trump’s White House ballroom construction project, with some characterizing it as an “invitation for corruption.”
Last year, Warren, Blumenthal, and Stansbury joined fellow Democrats in sponsoring bicameral legislation that would create limits on funding for presidential libraries, citing Trump’s flouting of traditional ethical safeguards.
According to Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department, and Securities and Exchange Commission during four presidencies spanning both parties, Trump’s actions are blatant examples of corruption.
“Ethics is in the toilet,” she said.