Deep Dives · A section · Updated October 13, 2026 · 201 sources
Corruption.
The question
Is the presidency being used for private benefit?
What the record shows
72 documented acts between September 2024 and October 2026, each answering one of three plainer questions: is he profiting from the office, is access being sold, is public money promoting him. Every act below links to the deep dive that documents it, where the money, the explanations and both sides are laid out in full.
Corruption, as these pages use the word, means public power used for private or personal benefit. That is a definition, not a verdict. Each dive below takes one question, lays out the record in order, sets the explanations against the documents, and keeps its opinion in a labeled take.
A policy you disagree with is not corruption. Neither is a building you dislike. The question in each case is who benefits, who pays, and whether the rules meant to keep those apart were followed.
Everything on this page is reporting drawn from the dives beneath it: 201 sources, each fact linked to where it came from, every quotation checked word for word. Opinion lives only in each dive’s labeled take. How these are built ↓
Start with a question
3 questions
Each is answered by its own deep dive. Pick one to show only its acts on the timeline.
Money reaching the president and his family while he holds office: crypto ventures, stock trades, foreign deals and spending at his own properties.
By His Own Account: the dive →Companies with business before the government paying for the president's own projects, and what they have received from the government since.
The Ballroom: the dive →Taxpayer money spent to put the president's face and message in front of the public.
Paid For: the dive →Every act, in order
The timeline
One line per act. Filter by question, by what the act was about, and by who acted; open a line for the account and its sources, or follow it into the dive. The filters live in the address, so a view can be sent to someone.
September 2024 1 act
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Announced by Eric Trump in August, the family’s crypto company debuted in a livestream on X with Trump, his sons and business partners, seven weeks before the election. It sells a governance token, WLFI, and later a stablecoin, USD1. Barron Trump, then 18, was named its “DeFi visionary.”
November 2024 1 act
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The crypto entrepreneur announced the purchase three weeks after the election. The Securities and Exchange Commission was then pursuing a civil fraud case against him.
December 2024 1 act
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ABC agreed to pay $15 million as a “charitable contribution” toward a future presidential foundation and museum, plus $1 million in legal fees, over George Stephanopoulos’s on-air statement that Trump was “found liable for rape.” The jury had found him liable for sexual abuse.
January 2025 4 acts
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Four days before the inauguration, Aryam Investment, backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s national security adviser, agreed to pay $500 million for 49 percent of the company. Eric Trump signed the deal. The buyers paid up front, “with $187 million going to Trump family entities and at least $31 million going to Witkoff family entities.” The Wall Street Journal reported the deal a year later.
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Trump launched a meme coin. Two companies, one of them a Trump Organization affiliate, “collectively own 80%” of the supply, and CIC Digital and its partner “will receive trading revenue,” according to the coin’s website. The token’s value “initially soared to $15 billion,” then lost most of it within days.
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He did not divest or place his assets in a blind trust, as recent predecessors did. They sit in a revocable trust overseen by Donald Trump Jr., which he can amend or revoke.
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Meta agreed to pay $25 million over his suspension after January 6, most of it toward the library. It also faced a Federal Trade Commission antitrust case headed for an April trial that could force it to unwind its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.
February 2025 2 acts
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X agreed to pay about $10 million, according to reports citing one person familiar with it; the disclosure lists $8 million. Its owner, Elon Musk, was running the administration’s cost-cutting effort. “It’s resolved,” Trump’s lawyer said.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission and Sun asked a court to pause the fraud case while they considered a resolution. It was settled in March 2026 with a $10 million penalty paid by his company.
April 2025 1 act
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A memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche shut down the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
May 2025 5 acts
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At a crypto conference in Dubai, World Liberty’s Zach Witkoff announced, “We are excited to announce today that USD1 has been selected as the official stablecoin to close MGX’s $2 billion investment in Binance.” MGX is chaired by the same UAE security chief behind the World Liberty stake. World Liberty earns the interest on its stablecoin’s reserves, which Fortune estimated “could net as much as $80 million over a year.”
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Two weeks later the White House announced a 5-gigawatt AI campus in Abu Dhabi to be built by G42, the state AI firm the same official heads. In November the administration authorized G42 to buy advanced Nvidia chips. No reporting shows the investments and the approvals were linked: “There’s no evidence that the chips are related to the two billion in World Liberty crypto,” 60 Minutes reported.
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The Defense Department accepted a Boeing 747-8 from the government of Qatar to fly as Air Force One; Trump has said he wants to keep it in his presidential library after leaving office. “Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our country,” he posted.
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Trump attended a dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest holders of his meme coin, who had spent “a combined $148 million on the token for the chance to be there.” The top holder was Justin Sun. The White House said, “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner.”
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The Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed its civil case against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, “in the exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter.”
July 2025 2 acts
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Paramount agreed to pay $16 million toward the library over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris; the unedited footage had confirmed she was accurately quoted. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the settlement had “nothing to do with the work that we’re doing at the FCC.” Commissioner Anna Gomez called it “a desperate move to appease the Administration and secure regulatory approval of a major transaction currently pending before the FCC.” The FCC approved the Skydance merger on July 24.
CBS News ↗NBC News ↗Los Angeles Times via Yahoo News ↗The Wrap ↗Federal Communications Commission ↗
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The White House announced it would demolish the historic East Wing and replace it with a ballroom funded entirely by private corporate donors. Cost estimates later rose from $200 million to $300 million and then to $400 million.
September 2025 3 acts
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Sen. Adam Schiff’s office reported that the Agriculture Department spent $16,400 on two banners of Trump and Abraham Lincoln, and the Labor Department about $6,000 on banners including Trump’s portrait over the words “American Workers First.” A third contract, $33,726 at Health and Human Services, paid for “Make America Healthy Again” signs. Schiff called the spending illegal, citing prohibitions in federal spending laws since 1951 on taxpayer spending “for publicity or propaganda purposes.”
The Labor Department said its banners were made for Labor Day and the country’s 250th anniversary. The White House called Schiff a “serial liar.”
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YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million: $22 million to the Trust for the National Mall for his White House ballroom. Weeks earlier Google’s chief executive had thanked the administration for its “constructive dialogue” after a ruling in the Justice Department’s search case against Google. Trump posted, “This MASSIVE victory proves Big Tech censorship has consequences.”
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Dar Global, a developer tied to the Saudi government, announced a roughly $1 billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah. Its chief executive later said its projects with the Trump Organization are valued together at around $10 billion.
October 2025 3 acts
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Demolition of the East Wing began in the week of October 20. The ballroom’s first architect, James McCrery II, a Trump appointee to the Commission of Fine Arts, withdrew that week.
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Trump signed a “full and unconditional pardon” for Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering violations; Binance had paid more than $4.3 billion. That spring, an Emirati fund’s $2 billion investment in Binance had been closed in World Liberty’s stablecoin. Asked about it on 60 Minutes, Trump said, “I don’t know who he is.” Zhao: “There’s no deal, there has never been any discussions.”
U.S. Department of Justice ↗CNBC ↗The Washington Post ↗Fox Business ↗CBS News ↗Fox News ↗
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The White House released the names of 37 donors, among them Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta and defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, but refused to disclose how much each gave. Alphabet pledged $22 million of a settlement. Ethics watchdogs warned that private funding gives wealthy donors unfair access to the president.
November 2025 1 act
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The Pentagon announced a $620 million loan commitment to Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnet startup that 1789 Capital, the firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, had invested in three months earlier. ProPublica later reported that the White House initiated it: “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” a person involved said.
December 2025 1 act
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The Trust sued in December, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing, arguing that the Constitution and federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction on White House grounds.
February 2026 1 act
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Work crews hung a banner with Trump’s portrait and the words “Make America Safe Again” on the headquarters of the Justice Department. A department spokesperson: “We are proud at this Department of Justice to celebrate 250 years of our great country and our historic work to make America safe again at President Trump’s direction.” Former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock: “Nothing says Justice is Blind like hanging a Dear Leader Banner at DOJ.”
March 2026 3 acts
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Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after a scandal over a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign that featured her on horseback. The biggest no-bid contract went to a firm incorporated days before it was awarded. Noem had testified that Trump approved the campaign. A White House spokesperson told NBC News: “POTUS did not sign off on a $220 MILLION dollar ad campaign. Absolutely not.”
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After cryptic teaser videos on its official accounts, the White House released an app with live-streamed briefings, press releases presented as news and an ICE tip line. CNBC reported that it “curates favorable news articles” and left out unfavorable data, such as rising oil prices.
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Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, blocked above-ground construction while allowing underground work and anything “strictly necessary” for security. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” He found that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have” and ordered: “Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!”
Al Jazeera (Reuters) ↗Spectrum News (Associated Press) ↗ABC News ↗
April 2026 3 acts
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A federal appeals court in Washington paused the injunction before it took effect, and construction went on while the case proceeded.
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Within a day of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote that the suit “puts the lives of the President, his family, and staff at grave risk” and asked the Trust to dismiss it.
The Trust refused on April 27. Its lawyer, Gregory Craig: “Simply put, this case does not jeopardize the President’s safety in any way.” He added: “And nothing prevents you from asking Congress at any time for the necessary authorization required by the Constitution and federal law.”
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Sens. Lindsey Graham, Eric Schmitt and Katie Britt pushed a bill to fund the ballroom with customs and national park user fees, and Graham said the White House supports it. In the House, Rep. Lauren Boebert said “hardly any” taxpayer money would be involved.
May 2026 3 acts
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A $72 billion Republican package for immigration enforcement included $1 billion for the ballroom, which, HuffPost reported, the package specifies is “for the Secret Service to use for security-related aspects.”
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Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the provision failed the Byrd rule, which keeps extraneous items out of budget bills. A spokesman for Majority Leader John Thune: “Redraft. Refine. Resubmit. None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process.”
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The federal chief information officer asked agencies to push the app onto government-issued phones. The FAA told its staff it “will automatically install ‘The White House’ application on all FAA-issued iPhones and iPads, as mandated by the White House.” David Nesting, a former deputy chief information officer at the Office of Personnel Management: “It’s just making sure all federal employees are forced to see the same propaganda they push.”
June 2026 4 acts
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Public Citizen found that 14 of the 27 publicly identified corporate donors had won new or expanded federal contracts worth more than $50 billion in the six months after fundraising began, about $43.8 billion of it to Lockheed Martin. It also noted that many of the same companies face federal enforcement actions, or have had them suspended, under this administration.
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Judge Patricia Millett asked a Justice Department lawyer, as Politico transcribed it: “If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors—that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast—nothing can be done?” He answered, “I think that’s right, yes.”
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The Office of Management and Budget released $351.6 million to the Secret Service, drawn from a roughly $1.17 billion Secret Service appropriation in the reconciliation package. The construction contractor had estimated roughly $300 million of the project’s cost would come from taxpayers.
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The Office of Government Ethics released the 927-page filing. Because many amounts are ranges, NBC noted, “it is impossible to state exactly how much Trump earned last year.” The Trump Organization: it “demonstrates a level of financial transparency unmatched in presidential history.”
July 2026 2 acts
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Asked about the windfall as he boarded the Qatari jet on its first flight as Air Force One, Trump said he does not “get involved” in his finances: “I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them.” He called it “the blind account.”
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Schiff found $39,000 in contracts for a banner at the Interior Department and $114,020 for the FAA, running through 2027. Records Politico obtained showed the Justice Department paid a $892,192.07 base contract for its banners and $54,768 more. Schiff: “an eight-story high Donald Trump head certainly qualifies as propaganda.”
The White House did not respond directly to questions about the contracts’ legality. Its spokesman said Schiff was willing “to trash the United States of America during its semiquincentennial celebration simply because he hates President Trump.”
August 2026 4 acts
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“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” the court wrote. It gave the government 14 days to seek relief from the Supreme Court.
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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, led by a Trump appointee, granted World Liberty Trust Co. preliminary conditional approval for a national trust bank charter. Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “Donald Trump is now the first President in history to own and oversee his own bank.”
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ↗CNBC ↗Fox Business ↗Senate Banking Committee Minority ↗
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On the day the injunction would have taken effect, Chief Justice John Roberts put it on hold while the Court considered the government’s request.
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The unsigned order found the Trust likely lacks standing: “we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury under Article III.” It added, “Today, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project.”
Roberts, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, dissented: “That construction is likely unlawful.” He wrote that an appropriation “of a couple million dollars for ordinary Executive Residence maintenance and repairs likely does not authorize the President to use hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to tear down the East Wing and construct a ballroom in its stead.” Trump posted that the Court “has just ruled in favor of the Ballroom/Military Complex being built without any further contingency, doubt, or threat.”
Supreme Court of the United States ↗SCOTUSblog ↗CNN ↗NBC News ↗CNBC ↗Legal Insurrection ↗
September 2026 21 acts
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Asked by New York Magazine whether he is building monuments to himself, Trump said, “That’s true,” and “Nobody will do it once I’m gone.” Of the ballroom, he said “the people should be thankful.”
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The Senate voted 49-50 against advancing the crypto market structure bill, with four Republicans opposed. Democrats wanted stricter enforcement and a requirement for the president to divest crypto holdings; last year’s stablecoin law, the AP noted, “did not extend to Trump or his family.”
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Three days after banning three news organizations, the White House launched “Trump TV: The Essentials Station,” a 24-hour stream of its own past video. Its head of digital strategy, Kaelan Dorr, called it “a livestream of the Administration’s greatest hits, unfiltered.” It opened, NOTUS reported, “with a two-month-old clip of the president speaking at Mount Rushmore.”
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The Washington Post reported that McCrery had warned the design gave most guests no way out through the main entrance in an emergency, and that Trump answered, “I am the code.” That line rests on two unnamed people; the White House denies that his departure had anything to do with codes. The documents the Post reviewed show a White House official’s note from a September 30, 2025 meeting: “Life safety — big concern.”
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A thirty-second spot of the president’s record and message ran during conservative shows on Fox News and Newsmax, closing with the line “paid for by the U.S. government.” AdImpact put the buy at $14,000. The White House had posted a 15-second version on its official YouTube channel on September 13. It called the ad “educational and unapologetically patriotic” and did not say what agency paid for it.
Two Republican senators objected. Thom Tillis: “using taxpayer dollars, it feels like Viktor Orban.” John Kennedy: “I don’t generally like to see politicians use public money to pay for their own campaign ads.”
Associated Press ↗The Independent ↗Mediaite ↗The White House ↗
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CBS News reported that the ad began running on national networks, CBS among them, and that a second government-paid ad, recounting the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and featuring Trump and his top Cabinet officials, aired on CBS stations and other networks that evening. There are 30- and 60-second versions. The government produced the content and paid for the air time through an ad agency, CBS reported.
The musician JMSN said he never licensed the song: “I would never authorize my music to be used for ANY political agenda or campaign.” A White House official told CBS the ads “are clearly not political.”
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Sen. Maggie Hassan asked chief of staff Susie Wiles for the cost, the contractors, the source of the funding and whether money was diverted from federal agencies. The top Democratic appropriators, Sens. Patty Murray and Jack Reed and Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Steny Hoyer, demanded that it be pulled: “This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”
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A minute-long ad began airing on Newsmax with video of Mount Rushmore at night and clips of Trump’s Fourth of July speech there: “This is only the beginning of the golden age of America.” The White House published “Presidential Public Service Announcements Are Nothing New,” calling the criticism “highly dishonest” and citing a Bush-era Medicare campaign, Obama’s EPA and Biden’s vaccination drive. NBC News noted that the Government Accountability Office had faulted the Bush campaign for not disclosing the government as its source and the Obama one for violating “publicity or propaganda and anti-lobbying provisions.”
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Public Citizen filed a complaint alleging the ads violate the laws against using government resources for propaganda and, for the staff involved, the Hatch Act. Co-president Lisa Gilbert: “Taxpayer funds cannot pay for partisan political propaganda.”
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A thirty-second black-and-white spot of Trump walking down a hallway, which the Associated Press called “virtually identical to one that aired in 2024,” ran during Fox’s broadcasts of two NFL games, CNN reported. Trump in it: “We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” NBC News reported that the government version drops the campaign ending and adds “Paid for by the U.S. government.” AdImpact put spending on the ads at more than $1.7 million.
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Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, on CBS’s “Face the Nation”: “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves.” Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky: “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics.”
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The Wall Street Journal reported, and NBC News, the Associated Press and CNBC confirmed, that the ads are paid for with Customs and Border Protection money from the 2025 reconciliation law rather than annual appropriations. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, confirmed it on the record, saying “it was taken out of funding that was supposed to be for Customs and Border Protection.” DHS referred questions to the White House. Sens. Patty Murray and Chris Murphy wrote that “it appears DHS has dedicated $20 million to this outrageous scheme” and asked for answers within 48 hours. CNBC found a $20 million CBP contract for a “National Media Campaign” awarded September 20, one day after the budget office released $20 million to CBP under a “Commemorative Events” line; the public record does not yet tie that contract to these ads.
Wall Street Journal ↗NBC News ↗AP ↗CNBC ↗Senate Appropriations Committee ↗USAspending.gov ↗
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CNN, citing one source familiar with the matter, reported that Trump personally drove the ads, including helping select the imagery and videos, and two Trump advisers told CNN they are made in-house by the White House video team. The Journal, citing people familiar, reported he pushed for them. Both accounts rest on anonymous sources.
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Majority Leader John Thune: “It’s a great message. I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.” Sen. Thom Tillis: “I hate it. I tell you, it feels like Viktor Orbán talking to the Hungarian people.” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle answered the criticism by calling Trump “the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party.”
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Public Citizen asked the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to “direct broadcasters to stop broadcasting” the ads, arguing that because Trump is not a candidate, stations are free to refuse them.
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An administration official told Axios that “The Department of Homeland Security is placing the ad buys using money from an existing budget,” and Axios reported that Trump “is personally selecting which government-funded ads his administration is airing ahead of the midterms,” with more to come. AdImpact counted 2,766 airings from September 23 to 29 on Fox News and the four broadcast networks, CNN reported, with about 30% of the spending on NFL and college football games.
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On the Senate floor, Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming blocked Sen. Maggie Hassan’s resolution declaring that such ads “should not be paid for by the United States government.” “When a Democratic president tells Americans what to do, it’s a public service,” Lummis said. “When this president tells Americans that liberty is worth defending, it’s suddenly a problem.”
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In the Oval Office, Trump said, “Now, if somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money, but these are ads for the country,” and, “I’m not promoting a candidate. I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office.” It was his first comment on the campaign.
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A fourth spot carrying the government disclaimer began airing. In it Trump says, “This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says, “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.” Which funds paid for it has not been confirmed.
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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, dismissed Public Citizen’s complaint: “There’s nothing in there that strikes me to merit any sort of FCC review.” Anna Gomez, the commission’s only Democrat, said she “highly” doubts the FCC “is going to do much to investigate it.”
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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the inspector general to examine possible violations of the Antideficiency Act, the Purpose Statute and the government-wide ban on “publicity or propaganda” in the 2026 appropriations law.
October 2026 6 acts
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The coin’s official site announced a November 22 dinner with Trump at his Virginia club for the coin’s top holders, ranked by their “time-weighted $TRUMP holdings as of Nov 12, 2026, 1 PM Eastern.” ABC News reported that 185 top investors will attend, “the third such gathering since his return to office.” The prizes include an 18-karat gold Trump watch. The White House referred Politico to the host organization, which did not respond.
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Reps. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and George Whitesides asked GAO to identify the “sources, accounts and total amount” spent and to rule on legality, and the Office of Special Counsel to determine who should be held accountable. It is the first request from members of Congress to GAO, which had told Ars Technica that its “work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is statutorily required by public laws.” The letter says “stealing taxpayer dollars to pay for Mr. Trump’s narcissistic ego trips is plainly illegal.”
Both agencies confirmed receiving it, the Daily Beast reported. GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek: “GAO has a process it goes through to determine whether we do work and when, which we are working through right now.”
Reuters (via U.S. News) ↗Washington Examiner ↗The Daily Beast ↗Ars Technica ↗
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CNN reported that the administration has created at least 13 campaign-style ads, including “God Made Trump,” shown at Republicans’ midterm convention, and obtained clips from a Dropbox account “run by LMD, the agency that has been given the government contract for the ad buys.” The Washington Post reported that to add $20 million to DHS’s “commemorative events” line, OMB drew on money the 2025 law gave CBP; a House budget committee report said that line was intended for “Line-of-Duty death memorials, Department or agency anniversaries, and commendation ceremonies.”
The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that “President Donald Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency.”
CNN ↗Washington Post ↗The New York Times (via The Seattle Times) ↗
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After criticism from both parties, Trump posted, “This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.” A White House official told CBS News the post “was not referring to reimbursing the federal government” for ads already bought.
Asked the next day whether he would repay the money already spent, he said, “we’ll decide,” the AP reported.
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In Common Cause v. Department of Homeland Security, Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the Southern District of New York stayed CBP’s $20 million purchase order and OMB’s reallocation of the money and ordered the government to cancel remaining placements, “including those placements for the evening of October 11, 2026,” for 14 days. The Justice Department had argued an order was unnecessary because “the alleged offending conduct will end tomorrow.”
In her opinion the next day, Rochon wrote that “Defendants do not contest the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims” and found the plaintiffs likely to succeed in showing the ads “were disseminated to support Republican candidates and impact the midterm elections.” She called DHS’s statement that it had “no plans” for more buys “equivocal” and cited Trump’s October 5 post calling the spending a “standard thing to do.”
Common Cause v. Department of Homeland Securit… ↗Common Cause v. Department of Homeland Security ↗AP ↗NBC News ↗CBS News ↗
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The plaintiffs told the court that, by AdImpact’s data, the ads “ran in nearly 400 spots on programs that began airing at 7 p.m. Eastern last night,” after the order took effect, including during CBS’s “60 Minutes” and ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and kept running the next day. The government’s status report explained that “Agency counsel did not become aware of Government counsel’s email until this morning” and said, “The undersigned apologizes to the Court and the plaintiffs.” The plaintiffs said they “do not presently seek contempt sanctions.” The judge set a conference for October 14.
Common Cause v. Department of Homeland Security ↗Common Cause v. Department of Homeland Security ↗CNN ↗Washington Examiner ↗
No act matches those filters.
Go deeper
The dives
Each question has its own page: the ledger of who paid what, the explanations set against the documents, who objected and who defended it, the rules, and a labeled take.
01Is he profiting from the office?
By His Own Account
Is he profiting from the office? His own financial disclosure answers most of it: what came in during his first year back, where it came from, and who was paying.
02Is access being sold?
The Ballroom
Who is paying for the president's ballroom, and what have they gotten since? The donors, the public money, the contracts, and a court fight the Supreme Court paused without deciding.
03Is public money promoting him?
Paid For
Is public money being used to promote the president himself? Banners of his face, an app on federal phones, a 24-hour stream and a TV ad with a government disclaimer: what each cost and who paid.
Standards
How these are built
From the record
- Every act on this page is an event from one of the dives, written from Trump Tracker entries that have already been through its validation protocol, with court filings and contracts linked directly wherever they exist. Nothing is added here that is not in a dive.
Overlap is not proof
- When donors later win government business, the pages say so and say what it does and does not show. A pattern is reported as a pattern, not as a bribe. The word corruption is used as the section defines it above: public power used for private benefit. That is a definition, not a verdict on any one act.