Last May, we launched our project to track credible allegations that President Trump, as well as his family members and close associates, are seeking to use the presidency to advance their personal financial interests.Just as President Trump’s son Eric will be providing President Trump with “quarterly” updates on the Trump Organization’s business affairs, we will do our best to provide readers with regular updates on credible allegations of presidential profiteering. Our December update is now available here.

There were relatively few major new developments, though there are some changes and modifications throughout to reflect more recent coverage of some of the topics and controversies included. One major story involving possible links between the Trump Organization’s Panama hotel and money laundering, drug trafficking, and other criminal activity (dubbed “Narco-a-Lago” and a recent Global Witness report) is not included in our tracking document because the Panama allegations so far appear to concern conduct that took place before Trump became president. While we do not intend to minimize the seriousness of these or similar allegations, our project here is to focus on ways that President Trump and his close associates may be exploiting the power of the presidency for personal gain.

As always, we note that while we try to include only those allegations that appear credible, we acknowledge that many of the allegations that we discuss are speculative and/or contested. We also do not attempt a full analysis of the laws and regulations that may or may not have been broken if the allegations are true. For an overview of some of the relevant federal laws and regulations that might apply to some of the alleged problematic conduct, see here.