The corporate and billionaire donors to Donald Trump’s gaudy ballroom project are beset by conflicts of interest, according to a new Public Citizen report.
Here are some quick facts from the report:
- Two-thirds of the 24 known corporate donors have recent government contracts for projects, totaling $279 billion over the last five years. Lockheed Martin is the largest of the government contractors, with $191 billion in federal contracts over the last five years.
- Of the 24 corporate donors, 14 are facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and T-Mobile; labor rights cases involving Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed and Meta; and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple.
- The corporate and billionaire funders of the ballroom have spent $1.6 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the last five years.
- The companies self-report a stunningly wide array of interests before the federal government, involving everything from taxation to trade policy, battlefield domain awareness to telephone poles, consumer privacy to product liability rules, appropriations to cybersecurity – and much more.
Public Citizen Co-President Robert Weissman, an author of the report, said these corporations’ hunger for political gain seems thinly veiled:
“These giant corporations aren’t funding the Trump ballroom debacle out of a sense of civic pride. They have massive interests before the federal government and they undoubtedly hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration. Millions to fund Trump’s architectural whims are nothing compared to the billions at stake in procurement, regulatory and enforcement decisions.
“But this is more than everyday corporate influence seeking. Paying tribute is a mark of authoritarianism and in making these payments, these corporations are aiding Trump’s authoritarian project. They should withdraw their contributions.”
Read the full report here.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.