https://wendy664.substack.com/p/corruption-is-too-kind-a-word-for
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Trump’s critics call him unintelligent, greedy, and amoral, yet mob bosses with those traits earned acclaim from their dupes for cunning. The president’s racketeering skills are a family inheritance, assembled through business connections across three generations and four continents.
“…as though a bunch of con men, rather untalented mafiosi, had succeeded in appropriating to themselves the government ‘of the mightiest power on earth.” — Political theorist Hannah Arendt, Home to Roost: A Bicentennial Address (1975), on the Nixon administration
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Joseph “Joey No Socks” Cinque pleaded guilty to possessing stolen property in 1989 and had reported ties to mob boss John Gotti. Photo credit: American Academy of Hospitality Sciences/Facebook, via Yahoo News.
On October 15, 2026, a donor list exposed that federal contractors financed about half of $333 million for the White House ballroom. President Donald Trump pardoned Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini in January 2026, after his daughter, Isabela Herrera, gave $3.5 million to pro-Trump MAGA Inc. The list also records at least $77 million from anonymous donors, so the public cannot trace who bought which favor. Donors fund Trump’s ballroom and crypto firm, and his administration returns pardons, dismissed lawsuits, and regulatory approvals. Sociologist Diego Gambetta defines a syndicate as an organization that sells protection for payment, and Trump’s administration meets that definition.
Three generations of Trumps profited from vice markets, an organized-crime partner, an unlawful casino loan, and inflated invoices that avoided gift taxes. Biographer Gwenda Blair documents that Friedrich Trump, Donald Trump’s grandfather, accumulated his savings from liquor, sex, and gambling in gold-rush Bennett and Whitehorse. In April 1901, merchants including Friedrich petitioned the Canadian government, and Superintendent Zachary Taylor Wood postponed his planned suppression of gambling and liquor sales.
Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, disclosed to Senate investigators in 1954 that William Tomasello owned 25 percent of Beach Haven. Journalist David Cay Johnston identifies Tomasello as an associate of Gambino and Genovese crime families. In 1990, Fred Trump purchased $3.5 million in chips at Trump’s Castle without wagering, lending the casino cash toward an $18.4 million interest payment. Donald Trump’s casino admitted in 1991 that the loan violated gaming laws and agreed to a $30,000 penalty.
Trump with Robert LiButti — March 27, 1988. John Gotti associate, shown beside Trump at WrestleMania IV in Atlantic City.
All County Building Supply & Maintenance, established by the Trump family in 1992, billed Fred Trump’s buildings markups of 20 to 50 percent. The New York Times reported in 2018 that the markups avoided gift taxes on transfers to his children. The same markups inflated the base rents behind approved increases, which tenants paid.
Donald Trump retained lawyer Roy Cohn, whose other clients included Genovese boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Federal court records establish that both clients controlled S&A Concrete, which supplied the Trump Plaza apartment building in the 1980s. Reporter Wayne Barrett documented that Trump built Trump Tower in concrete instead of steel and extended the bosses’ cartel relationship beyond any builder’s need. Journalist David Cay Johnston reported that the developer paid S&A inflated prices for concrete. He also uncovered that the indictment that sent Salerno to prison cited the nearly $8 million Trump Plaza contract as racketeering evidence.
Trump with John Alite — summer 2022 Former Gambino hitman who pleaded guilty to murder and robbery. Photo: John Alite/Facebook.
Twenty-two years after Salerno’s 1988 conviction, Trump hired the racketeer Felix Sater as a senior adviser in 2010. Sater had pleaded guilty in 1998 to racketeering in a $40 million stock fraud involving the Genovese and Bonanno families. Sater’s 2015 emails expose the broker’s function, which is to carry offers between a principal and outside buyers. He assured Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, that his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin could help elect Trump. Cohen later acknowledged that Sater acted as the deal broker for the Trump Tower Moscow project.
Trump with Felix Sater, who pleaded guilty to racketeering in 1998 and became Trump’s senior adviser in 2010. Photo credit: Mark Von Holden/WireImage via Getty Images.
Laundered proceeds reached Trump Tower three decades before the Moscow project, when David Bogatin paid $6 million for five condominiums in 1984. Barrett found that Trump attended the closing, and Bogatin pleaded guilty in 1987 to a motor-fuel tax evasion scheme with Russian organized crime. The government seized the units as purchases made to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network fined the Trump Taj Mahal, which Trump owned in the 1990s, $477,700 in 1998 for currency reporting violations. The casino paid $10 million in 2015 for willful anti-money-laundering violations dating back to 2003.
In April 2013, two years before that payment, FBI agents searched an illegal gambling enterprise run from Trump Tower Unit 63A, below Trump’s unit. Prosecutors said the enterprise laundered about $100 million and described Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, a “Thief-in-Law,” as the operation’s protector. On November 9, 2013, the fugitive sat in the VIP section at Trump’s Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Pam Bondi, then Trump’s attorney general, disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, the unit pursuing Russian oligarchs’ assets, on February 5, 2025.
Withdrawn enforcement lowers the trust buyers place in the state, and Gambetta found that protection sells where trust is scarce. He and economist Peter Reuter define the mafia by the product these groups sell, which is protection that buyers cannot purchase lawfully. The late historian Charles Tilly argued in 1985 that a government that creates a threat and charges for protection is a racketeer. His essay ranks state making among “quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy.” A government that charges private payers forfeits that advantage and operates as a criminal racket.
Buyers pay Trump’s family through World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm that sells tokens. Reuters reported on March 31, 2025, that the Trump family, through DT Marks DeFi LLC, controls at least 60 percent of World Liberty. NBC News reported that the Trump family receives 75 percent of World Liberty’s crypto token revenue.
Tron founder Justin Sun, a defendant in a federal fraud case, bought $30 million in World Liberty tokens after the 2024 election. World Liberty named Sun an adviser in November 2024, and he raised his purchases to $75 million by January 28, 2025. The Securities and Exchange Commission joined Sun in asking a judge to pause the fraud lawsuit 29 days later, on February 26, 2025.
Trump with Joseph Merlino, a former mob boss imprisoned for racketeering and illegal gambling, in January 2023. Photo source: newspaper archive; photographer uncredited.
Prosecutors who charge brokers must still prove a corrupt agreement between payer and official. Supreme Court justices required an explicit promise to perform an official act for campaign-contribution bribery charges in McCormick v. United States in 1991. In Snyder v. United States in 2024, the Court ruled 6-3 that a federal-funds bribery statute covering state and local officials excludes later gratuities. On February 10, 2025, Trump paused new enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars bribing foreign officials, for 180 days.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team on April 7, 2025, and ended exchange prosecutions for users’ acts. The Emirati firm MGX invested $2 billion in Binance in May 2025 using World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin. The Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed the Binance lawsuit on May 29, 2025, and President Donald Trump pardoned founder Changpeng Zhao in October 2025.
Binance’s 2023 settlement with the Justice Department and Treasury required independent compliance monitors. Four senators wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on June 16, 2026, that his department had not meaningfully answered inquiries about oversight of Binance. On August 14, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Treasury bureau, conditionally approved World Liberty Trust to issue USD1.
Aryam Investment 1, backed by MGX chairman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, agreed to buy a $500 million World Liberty stake. The Wall Street Journal reported $187 million reached Trump-family-controlled entities. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff collected nearly $107 million in 2025 from a World Liberty affiliate. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund committed $2 billion to Affinity Partners, led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. On September 5, 2026, the compensated brokers Witkoff and Kushner met Putin.
Trump needs cheaper fuel before the 2026 midterms, so he demanded Ukraine halt strikes on Russian refineries. He waived diesel sanctions in an October 9, 2026, deal with Putin and blocked additional Russia sanctions on October 16, 2026. Each action protects Russian oil revenues or weakens Ukrainian defense for Republican electoral advantage, a continuing quid pro quo.
Kushner, a Ukraine negotiator, collected over $110 million in Saudi management fees, Representative Robert Garcia and Senator Ron Wyden estimate. Trump offers the kingdom that paid his son-in-law a nuclear pact lacking an enrichment ban and mandatory enhanced inspections. The president therefore sells American concessions for Saudi payments to his family, an exchange of official favors for money.
Us Treasury funds now reward loyalty to Trump, and the Justice Department agreed in March 2026 to pay Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, $1.25 million. On May 18, 2026, the administration ordered a nearly $1.8 billion fund for January 6 defendants and allies, settling Trump’s IRS lawsuit. A judge blocked the plan, and Blanche rescinded the order on August 2, 2026, to win Senate confirmation. The Justice Department appealed the July 13, 2026, ruling on September 11, 2026, contradicting the rescission.
Fundraiser Elizabeth Fago attended a $1 million dinner at Trump’s club in April 2025, and Trump pardoned her son, Paul Walczak, within three weeks. Purchased access has value only when exclusion carries a penalty, and executive orders threatened law firms’ security clearances and government contracts. Paul Weiss pledged $40 million in pro bono work, and Trump rescinded the directive on March 20, 2025.
Economists Joel Hellman, Geraint Jones, and Daniel Kaufmann defined state capture in 2000 as firms purchasing rules from officials. Capture pairs buyers with sellers, whereas a syndicate adds victims coerced into tribute. The law firms paid to end threats rather than purchase rules.
Carnegie Endowment senior associate Sarah Chayes documented in 2015 that corrupt governments grant thieves protection from prosecution when they remit proceeds upward. Hungary’s former education minister Bálint Magyar distinguished kleptocracy, which diverts revenue, from mafia states, where rulers levy ransom on outsiders who fear punishment. Extortion succeeds only when targets lack an overseer who can penalize the extortionist. The president dismissed about 17 inspectors general on January 24, 2025. By June 2025, the Justice Department had reduced the Public Integrity Section from over 30 attorneys to four or five.
Michael Cohen testified before Congress on February 27, 2019, that Trump “doesn’t give you orders” and “speaks in a code.” On January 2, 2021, Trump used the code when he pressured Brad Raffensperger, a Republican secretary of state, to “find 11,780 votes.” He warned that inaction was “a criminal offense” and “a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”
A helicopter crash on October 10, 1989, killed Stephen Hyde, Mark Etess, and Jonathan Benanav, three executives of Trump’s casino business. Ivana Trump, Trump’s first wife and a former casino manager, died on July 14, 2022. After her death, the state attorney general’s office delayed depositions of Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump set to begin July 15, 2022.
Scholar Kerry Healey’s 1995 National Institute of Justice study of gang-dominated communities found that credible intimidation silences witnesses without actionable threats. Before any disclosure, principals have killed insiders they feared would disclose. After the 1978 Lufthansa robbery, mobster James Burke ordered participant Parnell Edwards killed because police could trace the getaway van to Burke. Trump said on August 23, 2018, that “flipping,” the use of cooperating witnesses, “almost ought to be outlawed.”
Praising former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on August 22, 2018, Trump wrote that, “unlike Michael Cohen,” Manafort refused to “break.” Cohen received a three-year sentence on December 12, 2018, after cooperating with prosecutors. A jury convicted longtime adviser Roger Stone on November 15, 2019, of tampering with witness Randy Credico. The president commuted Stone’s 40-month sentence in July 2020 and pardoned Stone and Manafort on December 23, 2020.
Clemency protects the loyal, but punishing opponents requires a Justice Department that answers to the president. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former private criminal defense lawyer, became acting attorney general in April 2026. He declared the president has “the right” and “duty” to order investigations of his targets.
Once an independent Justice Department exists, prosecutors must choose which defendants to charge first. Researcher Lucia Cavallaro and seven co-authors simulated arrests in a Sicilian mafia network in 2020. Arresting the 5 percent of members with the highest betweenness cut the largest connected group by up to 70 percent. The five-year statute of limitations keeps the 2025 crimes of Trump’s brokers chargeable until 2030, unless the president pardons them first.
Congress can rewrite the federal-funds bribery statute to cover gratuities that Snyder excluded. Senators Jeff Merkley and Chuck Schumer introduced the End Crypto Corruption Act on May 6, 2025. The bill would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress, and their families from profiting by issuing or endorsing digital assets. State attorneys general can charge bribery and fraud, because a presidential pardon reaches only federal crimes.
State prosecutions reach the crimes but leave the president in office, and removal belongs to Congress. Political scientists Sarah Anderson, Daniel Butler, and Laurel Harbridge-Yong found in 2020 that legislators who fear primary voters reject compromise. Conviction requires 67 senators, including at least 20 Republicans, each of whom answers to Republican primary voters. The president therefore uses the credible threat to block his own removal.
Crime syndicates commandeer institutions by stealth, suborning each official in turn until the conspirators dominate the firm, the regulator, and the court. Federal prosecutors and court-appointed trustees have purged cabals entrenched for generations; eradication remains arduous yet attainable. Prosecutors end a cabal as hunters kill a serpent, severing the brokers so the coils, however vast, perish.
“The members of the commonwealth riot on the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of a few, and the license of many.” — French philosopher Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (1748), Book III, Chapter 3
Publication Disclaimer: This publication provides journalism, political analysis, historical interpretation, and protected opinion. This publication does not advocate, solicit, encourage, instruct, or assist unlawful conduct. W. A. Lawrence and this Substack reject violence, criminal activity, and threats against any person or institution. Readers remain solely responsible for their conduct and compliance with applicable laws.
Sources
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