The Trump Family and ‘Honest Graft’

Hey, you think it's easy for the Dark Lord to walk the fine line between being evil and using his office for personal gain. I don't mind telling you I'm a little jealous.

The Trump Family and ‘Honest Graft’

They are profiting off the Presidency in ways that demean the office.

By The Editorial Board, WSJ

July 1, 2026 5:42 pm ET

Americans tell pollsters they don’t think they are getting ahead financially. But President Trump and his family are having no trouble, judging from his 2025 financial disclosure report released Tuesday. The Trump clan is cashing in on the Presidency in big and sketchy ways.

The 927-page report shows Mr. Trump made some $1.4 billion last year from crypto alone. Yowzers. This includes $635 million in royalties from the memecoin that Mr. Trump launched days before his inauguration. Trump Organization business affiliates make money from what are akin to transaction fees when the memecoin is traded.

Another $593 million came from token and equity sales by World Liberty Financial, whose co-founders include the President, his sons and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Mr. Witkoff’s son, Zach, is its CEO. A business entity affiliated with Mr. Trump and his family members owns a major chunk of World Liberty.

We have detailed some of World Liberty’s dubious deals with foreign actors that may have been trying to buy influence with the Administration. This includes DWF Labs, a crypto firm based in the United Arab Emirates, and the Pakistan government. Abu Dhabi used World Liberty’s stablecoin to invest in the Binance crypto platform.

Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws and Iran sanctions. Its co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, was pardoned by Mr. Trump in October. The Journal reported in May that since the plea deals billions of dollars were routed through Binance and financed Iran’s regime.

Then there’s the Trump family’s financial alchemy involving government support for critical minerals. The Administration has provided billions of dollars in financing to an array of critical mineral developers to shore up U.S. supply chains so China can’t weaponize its dominance. The government investment has caused an industry gold rush.

The Trumps are seeing their opportunities and taking them, in the tradition of what Tammany Hall’s George Washington Plunkitt called “honest graft.” (For Princeton history majors, Tammany Hall was a 19th century Democratic political machine.) The President’s disclosure report shows capital gains in the range of $100,000 to $1 million from critical mineral developer MP Materials, whose share price surged last summer after the company announced the Pentagon was taking a 15% stake.

Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Vulcan Elements three months before the company received a $620 million government loan. Investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, which is headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s sons, has been a financial adviser or underwriter for many startups that have received government support.

The Trump Administration has also offered up to $1.6 billion in financing for a project to develop a tungsten mine in Kazakhstan. There’s no question the U.S. needs to diversify its tungsten supply, which is critical to weapons systems. But a firm partly owned by Mr. Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. invested in a company backing the project shortly before the Administration announced a minerals deal with Kazakhstan last November that paved the way for the project. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev posted a photo of himself at a White House deal-signing ceremony.

The Administration has proposed establishing price floors for critical minerals to ensure China can’t flood the market and financially undercut alternative suppliers, as it has in the past. This might make sense, but a government guaranteed price paired with financial support make these projects potentially very lucrative for investors like the Trump family.

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Assuming all of this is legal, it’s still an unseemly display of using the Presidency for family profit. It’s hard to believe the Trump boys would be able to do the same deals if Dad wasn’t in the Oval Office. The main difference between Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings and the Trump projects is that the Trumps are brazenly open about theirs.

But there will be political costs—for Republicans. If Democrats take back the House or Senate this November, they will have a field day probing the Trump family deals. Charges of GOP corruption will resound through 2028. This will feed the left’s class warfare and facile narrative that billionaire “oligarchs” are getting rich off government.

Foreigners may come to think they can buy American goodwill or favors if they cut the Trumps in on the action. Americans, and especially his supporters, deserve better from this or any President.