No presidential administration is completely free from questionable ethics practices, but Donald Trump has pushed us to a new low. He has accomplished that by breaking every norm of good government, often while enriching himself, whether by pardoning a convicted felon who, together with his wife, donated $1.8 million to the Trump campaign; promoting Teslas on the White House driveway; or holding a private dinner for speculators who purchase his new cryptocurrency.
Mr. Trump’s blatant transgressions have swamped those of any modern president and even those of his first term. Remember the outrage when he refused to divest his financial holdings or when he used a Washington hotel he owned as a kind of White House waiting room? Those moves seem quaint in comparison.
In his trampling of historically appropriate behavior, Mr. Trump appears to be pursuing several agendas. Personal enrichment stands out: Imagine any other president collecting a cut of sales from a cryptocurrency marketed with his likeness. There is the way he is expanding his powers: He has ignored or eliminated large swaths of rules that would have inhibited his freedom of action and his ability to put trusted acolytes in key roles. And then there’s rewarding donors, whether through pardons or favors for their clients.
I was working in the Washington bureau of The Times when Richard Nixon resigned, and even he — taken down by his efforts to cover up his misdeeds — did not engage in such a vast array of sordid practices.
The corruption of Trump 2.0 has not gotten the attention it deserves amid the barrage of news about Mr. Trump’s tariff wars, his attack on scientific research and his senior appointees’ Signal text chains. But self-dealing is such a defining theme of this administration that it needs to be called out. Like much that Mr. Trump has done in other areas, it announces to the world that America’s leaders can no longer be trusted to follow its laws and that influence is up for sale.
Just as in the post-Nixon era, when guardrails were established to prevent transgressions, the next president could decide to restore some of the sound government practices that Mr. Trump has trampled on. But the damage he has inflicted by, say, pardoning his donors or lining his own pockets is irreversible.
The below represents just a sampling of what’s transpired these past 100 days.
He Eliminated Guardrails
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He turned a legitimate federal employee designation into a loophole. By giving senior officials such as Elon Musk the title “special government employee,” Mr. Trump avoided requirements that they publicly disclose their financial holdings and divest any that present conflicts before taking jobs in the administration.
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He ended bans that stopped executive branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists or seeking lobbying jobs themselves for at least two years.
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He loosened the enforcement of laws that curb foreign lobbying and bribery.
He Fired Potential Resistors
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He dismissed the head of the office that polices conflicts of interest among senior officials.
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He jettisoned the head of the office that, among other things, protects whistle-blowers and ensures political neutrality in federal workplaces.
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He purged nearly 20 nonpartisan inspectors general who were entrusted with rooting out corruption within the government.
He Rewarded His Wealthiest Donors
Rewarding donors is part of any presidential administration. Every president in my memory appointed supporters to ambassadorships. But again, Mr. Trump has gone much further.
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Jared Isaacman, a billionaire with deep tentacles into SpaceX, gave $2 million to the inaugural committee and was nominated to head NASA — SpaceX’s largest customer.
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The convicted felon Trevor Milton and his wife donated $1.8 million to the campaign and Mr. Milton received a pardon, which also spared him from paying restitution.
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The lobbyist Brian Ballard raised over $50 million for Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Mr. Trump handed major victories to two Ballard clients. He delayed a U.S. ban on China-owned TikTok his first day in office and killed an effort to ban menthol cigarettes, a major priority of tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, on his second.
Mr. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire who spent $277 million to back Mr. Trump and other Republican candidates, requires his own category.
As a special government employee, Mr. Musk is supposed to perform limited services to the government for no more than 130 days a year. By law, no government official — even a special government employee — can participate in any government matter that has a direct effect on his or her financial interests. That criminal statute hasn’t stopped Mr. Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency from interacting with at least 10 of the agencies that oversee his business interests.
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He installed a SpaceX engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration to review its air traffic control system. The F.A.A. is reportedly considering canceling Verizon’s $2.4 billion contract to update its aging telecommunications infrastructure in favor of a SpaceX’s Starlink product. (SpaceX has denied it is taking over the contract.)
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SpaceX is a leading contender to secure a large share of Mr. Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense project, an effort that could involve billions of revenue for the winner.
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X, Mr. Musk’s social media outlet, has become an official source of government news. The White House welcomed a reporter from the platform at a recent briefing, and at least a dozen government agencies started DOGE-focused X accounts.
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As Mr. Musk’s political activities started to repel many potential customers of Tesla, his electric vehicle company, Mr. Trump lined Tesla vehicles up on the White House driveway and extolled their benefits. Then Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News viewers to buy Tesla shares.
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DOGE nearly halved the team at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that regulates autonomous vehicles. The agency has been investigating whether Tesla’s self-driving technology played a role in the death of a pedestrian in Arizona.
He Went All In on Cryptocurrency
Critics of crypto argue that it has demonstrated little value beyond enabling criminal activity. Despite this, Mr. Trump has wasted no time eliminating regulatory oversight of the industry at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, even as his family grows ever more invested in it.
By enabling money to be delivered anonymously and without any bank participation, crypto offers the possibility for any individual or foreign state to funnel money to Mr. Trump and his family secretly. Moreover, Bloomberg News recently estimated that the Trump family crypto fortune is nearing $1 billion.
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On the eve of his inauguration he released $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins — a type of crypto derived from internet jokes or mascots. Next, the S.E.C. announced it would not regulate memecoins. Then last week, Mr. Trump offered a private dinner at his golf club and a separate “Special VIP Tour” to the top 25 investors in $TRUMP, causing the price of the currency to surge and enriching the family. (That tour was initially advertised as being at the White House. Then the words “White House” disappeared, but the rest of that prize remained.)
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The S.E.C. eliminated its crypto-enforcement program, ending or pausing nearly every crypto-related lawsuit, appeal and investigation. That includes the civil suit against Justin Sun, a crypto entrepreneur who had separately purchased $75 million worth of tokens tied to Mr. Trump’s family after the election.
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The S.E.C. also suspended its civil fraud case against Binance, the huge crypto exchange that pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations and allowed terrorist financing, hacking and drug trafficking to proliferate on its platform. Soon after, the company met with Treasury officials to seek looser oversight while also negotiating a business deal with Mr. Trump’s family.
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World Liberty Financial, a crypto company that Mr. Trump and his sons helped launch, said it had sold $550 million worth of digital coins. A business entity linked to him gets 75 percent of the sales.
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The Trump family has said it will partner with the Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com to introduce a series of funds comprising crypto and securities with a made-in-America focus.
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The federal government’s “crypto czar,” David Sacks, Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Musk all have connections to the market. (Mr. Musk named DOGE after a memecoin.)
He Is Always Closing
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Mr. Trump is reportedly on his way to raising $500 million for his political action committees — highly unusual for a president who cannot run for re-election.
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A new Trump Tower is underway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city, with plans for two more projects for the kingdom announced after Mr. Trump’s November election victory, all in partnership with a Saudi company with close ties to the Saudi government.
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Mr. Trump’s team asked about bringing the signature British Open golf tournament to his Turnberry resort in Scotland during a visit of the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, to the White House.
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He posts news-making announcements on Truth Social, the company in which his family owns a significant stake.
It’s all a sorry and sordid picture, a president who had already set a new standard for egregious and potentially illegal behavior hitting new lows with metronomic regularity.
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Steven Rattner is a contributing Opinion writer and the chairman and chief executive of Willett Advisors. He was a counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration. @SteveRattner • Facebook
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