Over three years ago, in May 2017, this blog started the project of tracking and cataloguing credible allegations that President Trump, and his family members and close associates, have been corruptly, and possibly illegally, leveraging the power of the presidency to enrich themselves. The newest update is now available here.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most significant updates this month (as was also the case last month) concern the ways in which the financial interests of the Trump Organization may intersect with the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Although the main criticisms of the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic have focused on the administration’s delays, misinformation, and general incompetence, some critics have highlighted suggestive evidence that the personal business interests of President Trump, his family, and their close associates may be influencing the administration’s approach to the pandemic. Critics have pointed to the following concerns:

• • Resistance to stay-at-home orders: There is some suspicion that the Trump administration’s slow and equivocal response to the pandemic may have been influenced by President Trump’s desire to avoid hurting the hospitality industry, one of the Trump Organization’s major lines of business. Media reports suggest that President Trump pushed for an end to social distancing by mid-April in part because of the adverse effect social distancing has had on his own hotels and resorts, and although President Trump ultimately relented and extended the social distancing guidelines through at least the end of April, he renewed his push for states to lift their stay-at-home orders in mid-May, despite the fact that states had not hit any of the targets laid out in the federal government’s own guidance on when it would be safe to reopen the economy. The potential conflict of interest was highlighted by the fact that on May 10, President Trump retweeted an announcement from the Trump Organization’s golf club in LA that it would be re-opening, accompanied by President Trump’s declaration that it’s “great to see our Country starting to open up again.” Former hear of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub characterized this tweet as “shameless, corrupt, and repugnant.”
  • Scope of travel ban: Critics highlighted the fact that the 30-day ban on travel from Europe that President Trump announced on March 11 initially excluded the United Kingdom and Ireland, where Trump owns hotels and golf courses, though a few days later the Administration extended the travel restrictions to cover both countries.
  • Access to economic relief funds: President Trump’s financial interests may have influenced the administration’s response to the pandemic’s economic costs. In early March 2020, President Trump mentioned the possibility of a bailout for the hotel industry, and later that month, as Congress and the administration were negotiating an economic relief package, President Trump refused to rule out the possibility that his personal properties would accept relief funds under this package. However, the bill that ultimately passed, known as the CARES Act, however, banned President Trump’s properties from receiving government support. Nevertheless, when signing the legislation, President Trump issued a statement that suggested his administration would not treat the portion of the legislation that requires the newly-created Inspector General to report to Congress without presidential approval as legally binding, a move that raises concerns about both transparency and compliance. Furthermore, despite the fact that the CARES Act bars businesses owned by President Trump or other government officials from receiving stimulus funding, the Trump administration has funneled COVID-19 small business loans to companies connected to Trump and his allies. Separately from CARES Act relief, the Trump Organization, which leases the Old Post Office Building in Washington D.C. from the General Services Administration (GSA) for the Trump International Hotel, has reportedly asked the GSA for relief from its rent payments, a request that highlights the inherent conflict of interest in the President’s family company renting a building from the federal government.
  • Promotion of particular COVID-19 tests and treatments. For several weeks, President Trump aggressively promoted hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine is produced by Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company. Three Trump family trusts have small investments in Sanofi, major Republican donor Ken Fisher owns a majority stake, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross used to run a fund that invested in Sanofi. Rick Bright, the former head of the U.S. Government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that he was pressured to give government contracts to political cronies, including to Aeolus Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company that produced hydroxychloroquine, because the company’s CEO was friends with President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Another troubling example is the Trump Administration’s selection of a firm called OSCAR Health—a company founded by Jared Kushner’s brother and formerly partially owned by Jared Kushner—to develop a website to facilitate coronavirus testing. (The website was developed but quickly scrapped, and in the end OSCAR Health was not paid for its efforts.)

A previously noted, while we try to include only those allegations that appear credible, 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.)