What did Donald Trump do today?

He sold corporate access to a White House Easter event for children.

The White House held an Easter egg roll today. This is an Easter Monday tradition that dates back to the 1870s. But in a sharp break with tradition, Trump sold corporate advertising rights to it.

The event is normally sponsored by an egg industry group specifically to avoid the problem of turning the People's House into a billboard. Also, the budget is modest to begin with—even with the price of eggs astronomically high due to an uncontrolled avian flu outbreak—because the White House hosts events of this scale almost every day. 

But this year, Trump charged corporate sponsors as much as $200,000 for "custom 30'x30' branded activation" in an event space seen mostly by children. The more likely appeal to the companies that paid up, which include the parent companies of Facebook, Google, and Amazon, is that the ad packages came bundled with private meetings to Trump and his wife.

Trump routinely sells access to himself and those with influence over him, a practice that goes back to at least the start of his first term. 

The event comes alongside new reporting on the quarter-billion dollars Trump's inaugural committee took in, an astronomical amount that is nowhere near what could have been spent on the inauguration festivities themselves. (Most of those costs are borne by the government, and in any event Trump moved the inauguration itself inside for fear of once again drawing embarrassingly small crowds.) Trump made a show of demanding—and getting—money for that committee from prominent businesses.

There are relatively few limitations on what Trump can do with the hundreds of millions of dollars left over in that fund, provided it is laundered through a non-profit organization like his presidential library. (Trump and several family members are currently forbidden from serving on a non-profit board in the state of New York without its permission, due to his involvement in the sham charity known as the Trump Foundation, but he can exert influence indirectly.) 

Meanwhile, paying money into what amounts to a slush fund for Trump seems to have been a good investment. At least 19 big-ticket corporate donors have seen criminal or civil cases against them dropped, stalled, or resolved in their favor in just the first three months since Trump's second term began.

Why does this matter?

• Selling access to people in power is the definition of corruption.

• Getting things in exchange for giving money to politicians is the definition of bribery.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He moved his inauguration indoors, although probably not for the reasons he claimed.

Temperatures for Trump's inauguration on Monday are expected to be below freezing. Today, he announced on his private social media network that the ceremony would be held indoors, in the Capitol Rotunda, where four years ago rioters trying to keep him in power forced Congress to abandon its attempts to certify the vote for President Biden.

Trump claimed in his post that his concern was for the safety of attendees, but that seems unlikely. He has a long history of abandoning people attending his rallies to both extreme heat and extreme cold. Trump famously spent most of his first day as president in 2017 furious at coverage showing the unusually small crowds.

Turnout is once again expected to be poor. Hotel availability is a good barometer for attendance, and—just as was the case for his notoriously underwhelming 2017 inauguration—there are a lot of empty rooms in Washington, D.C. this weekend.

Why does this matter?

• It's bad when presidents lie to the public, even if it's just to soothe their own egos.

• Someone who is being inaugurated as president but is still upset about whether they seem popular enough probably isn't emotionally fit for the office.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to drum up sales for his picture book.

While Trump cabinet announcements have been coming at a regular pace over the last few weeks, Trump himself has been barely visible, other than a command performance a failed Elon Musk rocket test. He's also been relatively quiet on his private social media network: his only post today was an ad for a picture book about him.

The book, Save America, is mostly public-domain photographs, or taken from the taxpayer-funded collections of Trump's presidential "library" (though it exists only as a government website at the moment). There is almost no text. As a Washington Post review notes, the photographs are often about subjects where Trump has already tried to rewrite history. For example, it complains that "Democrats" lied about his inaugural crowd being "the biggest ever." It wasn't, but Trump made insisting otherwise the main order of business on his first day in office.

The book also insists that "pictures were almost impossible to get" of the Jan. 6th riot that tried to overturn the 2020 election on his behalf. They are not—it was one of the most heavily photographed events in human history—although none of the following pictures appear in it.

With shipping, Trump's picture book costs $110, almost double the price of the $60 Trump-branded Bible he also sells. Save America is published by Sergio Gor, who Trump just named to head the White House Personnel Office.

Why does this matter?

• There's self-promotion and then there's fleecing the rubes.

• Running a vanity publishing company doesn't qualify someone to staff a White House.

• Even when people are paying more than a hundred dollars for it, it's still wrong to lie.

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What did Donald Trump do today?

He "joked" about using the presidency to shake down businesses for money.

Trump started the 2020 race with a huge money advantage over any potential challenger. But now, when it matters most, it's positively cash-poor, and that's already affecting the campaign as aides make triage decisions about where Trump can still afford to compete. Earlier in the summer, Trump half-heartedly suggested he'd self-fund his campaign with $100 million he clearly doesn't have, but nothing ever came of it.

Clearly stung by the comparison with the Biden campaign's record-setting donations, Trump brought the subject up at a rally. He seemed to be trying to argue that, if he wanted to, he could be an effective fundraiser for his own re-election campaign—if he forced businesses to pay him bribes.

So when the press says … and we’re raising a lot of money, we’re raising a lot of small money, a lot of 61, 62 [sic]. No Republican’s ever done that. But when I started calling, I would be the greatest fundraiser in history. Don’t forget. I’m not bad at that stuff anyway, and I’m president. So I call some guy at the head of Exxon, I called ahead of Exxon, I don’t know, I’ll use a company. “Hi, how you doing? How’s the energy coming? When are you doing the exploration? Oh, you need a couple of permits. Huh? Okay.”

But I call the head of Exxon, I say, “I’d love you to send me $25 million for the campaign.” “Absolutely sir. Why didn’t you ask? Would you like some more?” And if I make the call, now people make the call, it’s different. But if I made that call, I will hit a home run every single call. I would raise a billion dollars in one day, if I wanted to, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do it.

It's hard to count how many abuse of power laws this would break, but the main federal bribery statute makes it a crime for a public official to even indirectly suggest that he is open to corruptly selling his office. The reason for this is that corruption scandals tend to do more damage by degrading Americans' faith in government than they do from the actual corrupt act. 

Normalizing it—even by making a Trump-style "joke" about it—is dangerous to democracy where citizens are expected to put their faith in one another, rather than a strongman-style leader. That's why making Americans think that their government is corrupt and untrustworthy is one of the main goals of the ongoing Russian disinformation campaign.)

Exxon—which did give Trump $500,000 for his inauguration, which is now itself under a corruption investigation—was forced to clarify that Trump never shook them down.

We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO…and just so we’re all clear, it never happened.

— ExxonMobil (@exxonmobil) October 19, 2020

That said, Trump is describing almost exactly what he was impeached for: using the presidency to try to force someone to give him something he personally needed. He's also done the same thing, in plain view, with the state of New York, in an attempt to force prosecutors there to drop their investigations of him. He's also been on the supply side of corruption: his failed "Trump Tower Moscow" project included a $50 million bribe for Vladimir Putin himself, in the form of a free ultra-luxury penthouse.

How is this a bad thing?

• The government of the people of the United States of America is not supposed to be for sale.

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What did Donald Trump do today?

He said people who say the things he's said about the United States should apologize.

Trump has spent much of the past week alternately running towards and running away from his claim that four Democratic congresswomen, all minorities and American citizens, should "go back" to the "crime infested" places they're from. (Three of the four were born in the United States.)

Today, he tweeted that they should "apologize" for unspecified remarks about the United States. It's not clear what he's talking about because most of the things Trump has claimed they've said, like praising al-Qaeda or calling the country "garbage", are lies. 

What is less clear is where Trump draws the line about what kind of criticism of the United States is acceptable. He himself has used the word "garbage" to describe the condition of the country. In fact, trashing the United States was a main theme of his campaign: Trump said that the U.S. was like a "third world country," and was being laughed at by other nations. In his inaugural address, normally a hopeful and optimistic speech, Trump gave a grim report on "American carnage."

Trump even managed to throw the United States under the bus in order to defend Vladimir Putin. Asked why he seemed so taken with a dictator who had murdered journalists, Trump shot back, "You think our country's so innocent?"

Why does this matter?

• Any American, not just the president, is allowed to criticize the United States.

• Lying by saying your political opponents support al-Qaeda is about as shitty a thing as it's possible to do in American politics.

• Americans might like Trump even less if they knew what he really thought of them.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He felt attacked.

Trump once again spent the day's "executive time" on Twitter, complaining about "Unlimited Presidential Harassment," by which he meant the various investigations into him and his businesses. He seems (not without reason) especially concerned about the revived House Intelligence Committee investigation, which is no longer chaired by his close political ally Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). 

In one tweet, he insisted that "Republicans never did this to President Obama, there would be no time left to run government."

This is, to some extent, true. President Obama did not have a private business other than his book royalties, so there were no concerns that his business connections could be used to buy influence over him in violation of the emoluments clause. Since there was no such business, it could not have violated campaign finance law by illegally funneling hush money to the porn-star mistresses Obama didn't have. Nor could it have been suspected of helping launder money for Russian oligarchs and drug cartels. Also, his tax returns were made public every year, so there was nothing to investigate in terms of what entities he might have owed money to.

By a similar token, the only "investigation" into the possibility of secret ties that Obama had to foreign governments was the one (supposedly) launched by Trump himself into whether Obama had in fact been born in the United States. It's not clear that the "investigators" Trump said he had dispatched to Hawaii actually existed or did any work, but in the end even Trump acknowledged that the "birther" conspiracy theory was wrong.

It's also fair for Trump to say that President Obama was not suspected—even by the Republican-controlled Congress that spend thousands of committee-hours investigating other aspects of his administration—of having collaborated with hostile foreign countries to sabotage the 2008 or 2012 election.

Obama operates a charitable foundation that has not admitted to illegal "self-dealing" or allowing itself to be used to further Trump's political ambitions. Neither were his inaugural committees accused of being slush funds, or any super-PACs associated with him of illegally accepting foreign donations, so no investigations were done there either.

Why should I care about this?

• Suspected criminals don't get a pass just because they feel "harassed."

• Presidents don't get to opt out of Congressional oversight.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied through a surrogate about his connections to his own inaugural committee.

Yesterday, news broke that federal prosecutors are investigating the vast amounts of money funneled through Trump's inaugural committee. The huge amounts of money that the committee took in—more than twice any previous committee's budget, for a comparatively cheap inauguration—has long been the subject of scrutiny in the press. It now appears likely that the committee, as well as a pro-Trump super PAC run, accepted illegal contributions from foreign governments. 

In an apparent attempt to insulate Trump from what increasingly looks like influence-peddling if not outright bribery, spokesman Hogan Gidley insisted this morning that Trump had nothing to do with his own inauguration, telling reporters:

[T]he president of the United States has one job at the inauguration. It's to show up, to thank everyone for the service to get him elected, and then also dance with the first lady. He did all of those things. This charge [of financial impropriety] has nothing to do with the president of the United States and it has nothing to do with this administration.

That appears to be a lie. Whether or not Trump's time or influence was bought and sold through the committee, Trump's hotel rooms were—at a substantial profit to Trump. 

A ProPublica/WNYC report released today shows that Ivanka Trump, acting on behalf of the Trump Organization that her father refused to sever his financial links to, sought to charge the committee vastly inflated rates. At least one committee member became alarmed, and begged the Trump Organization to remember that there would eventually be an audit of the charges.

In other words, Ivanka Trump was trying to convert money that was legally restricted to valid inauguration events into profits for her father's business by forcing her father's inauguration committee to pay well above market rates. This would not only be flagrantly unethical, but since the inaugural committee is a non-profit organization, it would be a serious violation of tax laws, something the Trump family knows a lot about.

Why does this matter?

• It should not be possible to bribe the President of the United States.

• It's wrong to funnel money for a non-profit organization to your for-profit business.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He spent what should have been a day of celebration for him lying about crowd size.

A day after labeling anti-Kavanaugh protestors as "#troublemakers" and saying they were paid off, Trump was back at the theme on Twitter. In a tweet shortly after Kavanaugh was confirmed, he insisted that there were "about 200 people (& most are onlookers)" protesting in front of the Supreme Court.

In reality, "about 200" is a pretty good estimate of just the number of people arrested during anti-Kavanaugh protests. Even though the vote was a foregone conclusion, protestors were out in force at both the Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol, as well as elsewhere around the country.

Crowd size has always been a fixation for Trump: he lashes out at staff when crowds at his own rallies are thin, and he famously spent his first full day in office furious about images showing his inauguration was poorly attended compared to President Obama's. 

Ironically, he is one of the few American politicians in modern history to have actually paid people to cheer at his own rallies: much of the crowd at his official campaign announcement were paid actors earning $50 to be there, and waved "homemade" signs provided by event organizers. (Trump said yesterday that protestors couldn't be real because some had printed signs.)

But the more likely reason that Trump is pretending that protestors are paid, or few in number, is that Kavanaugh was deeply unpopular with voters for a Supreme Court nominee. 

So what?

• In a democracy, leaders don't try to shame people for using their right to free speech.

• It's wrong to lie.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He revealed the names of the million-dollar donors to his inaugural committee--but not where the millions of dollars left over are going.

In a break with tradition, Trump refused to immediately disclose the identities of the corporations and lobbyists who gave more than $106.7 million in support of his inauguration festivities. Instead, he shielded them until the very end of the 90-day window, sending the FEC documents yesterday that were released to the public today.

Donations like these are always laden with the implication that they are attempts to buy influence, although Trump's explicit promise to million-dollar donors of "exclusive access" to him at a candlelight dinner, and other paid-for meetings with senior officials, dramatically increased donations. In 2009, President Obama raised the previous record total of $53 million, but with $50,000 per-donor limits.

Unlike the 2009 inauguration, however, Trump's inauguration was a relatively thrifty and limited affair, which the campaign scaled back as the date drew near. The money left over, which should be in the millions, now disappears entirely from the view of regulators. Trump has said he'll give the money to charity--a kind of promise he has frequently made and seldom kept in the past--but nothing prevents him from secretly (or openly) giving the money to allied political organizations. 

Why should I care about this?

• The more untraceable political money a president attracts, the more likely it is that the corporations and lobbyists giving it think they're buying influence.

• Hiding who has given you money until the last possible minute is something you do when you want to hide who has given you money until the last possible minute.

• Pulitzer Prizes have been won covering just how unlikely it is that Donald Trump will fulfill a pledge to pass other people's money along to charity.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got challenged in court by one of the few things on the planet he takes seriously: Twitter.

On the day of Trump's inauguration, he found time to ban the entire Interior Department from social media because the National Parks Service retweeted a photo showing lackluster crowds on the National Mall--an enormous sore spot with Trump, as it turned out.

Almost immediately, an "alternative" NPS Twitter account appeared, followed by dozens of other such unsanctioned accounts claiming to represent the employees or supporters of various government agencies. 

According to Reuters, Trump subsequently demanded that Twitter help "unmask" the people behind such accounts that were critical of Trump. Twitter refused on First Amendment grounds, and today revealed that it is suing the Trump administration to quash all such demands. 

Why should anyone care about this?

• Trying to expose the identities of critics of the government is what authoritarians do.

• A president who cannot bear to let mockery or criticism go unpunished is not emotionally fit for the job.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He banned members of the media from the premises of his DC hotel.

Politico reporter Daniel Lippmann tried to have breakfast at the hotel Wednesday morning, but was turned away by the hotel's management, who told him that members of the media are barred during the week of the inauguration. As Lippmann later reported, DC laws and the terms of the hotel's government lease appear to forbid this.

Trump may be unusually sensitive about the Trump International Hotel because it is at the center of several of his more pointed conflicts of interest. His lease specifically forbids federal officers from being party to it. As president, Trump would be both plaintiff (since the GSA is an executive branch office) and defendant in any lawsuit over the terms of that lease.

He has also been accused of trying to drive foreign diplomats' business to the hotel as quid pro quo for access to his administration. A promise to reimburse the government for profits from such use in that one specific hotel was the only concession he made at last week's press conference on his refusal to divest from his business empire. Furthermore, Trump is being sued for nonpayment by at least three contractors who rushed to finish the hotel in time for the inauguration.

So what?

• It's bad if a president tries to ban reporters from public places.

• Trying to prevent reporting on conflicts of interest does not make conflicts of interest go away.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tweeted triumphantly that "people are pouring into Washington in record numbers" for his inauguration.

Many people will indeed attend the inauguration, although "record numbers" seems somewhat unlikely. As of this post, hotels.com reports that 24% of DC-area hotel rooms are unbooked for Friday night. Trump himself has joined the effort to give away free tickets, and scalpers are reporting losses. By contrast, resold ticket prices for President Obama's 2009 inauguration rose into the thousands of dollars and prompted emergency anti-scalping legislation in Congress.

However, Trump's larger point about drawing large crowds "into Washington" is correct in one sense: protestors are likely to outnumber those actually attending the inauguration. It's not clear if Trump is personally aware of that.

Why should anyone care about this?

• It speaks poorly of a president's integrity if he deliberately counts protestors as supporters.

• It speaks poorly of a president's mental state if he cannot tell the difference between protestors and supporters.