Fleeced: America Gets Grifted by the Swamp King

Jeff Robbins on Apr 29, 2025

Addressing Congress in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt warned Americans about being lulled into unconsciousness by those who pooh-poohed the dark clouds over Europe created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. "I hope that we shall have fewer American ostriches in our midst," said FDR. "It is not good for the ultimate health of ostriches to bury their heads in the sand."

There's no gainsaying that when it comes to capitalizing on many Americans' willingness to be bamboozled by hucksters, Donald Trump is pure gold. The slogan "Make America Great Again" isn't mindless quite so much as mendacious: much of what he has in mind has been taking a chain saw to the democratic and civic institutions that made America great in the first place and have kept it that way.

But the cream of the crop, slogan-wise, has been Trump's mantra that he was about "draining the swamp" -- cleaning up the corruption and the influence-peddling in Washington. This ought to be uproarious for anyone paying attention: You have to be not any old ostrich but a narcoleptic one to keep from laughing at Trump's use of that phrase. He isn't merely King of the Swamp, but he's king of the most foul-smelling swamp in American history.

Remember the refrain that Joe Biden was "crooked" because his son got paid to be on the board of a Ukrainian oil company? Hunter Biden's profiting off his father's name was chicken feed compared to what we are witnessing. Trump's sale of the Oval Office to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue for his and his family's new cryptocurrency ventures is only the tip of an iceberg of self-dealing -- but what a tip!

Just before taking office again, he issued so-called "meme coins," which his Securities and Exchange Commission promptly and dutifully announced it would not regulate. The issues are called -- wait for it -- $TRUMP and $MELANIA, as befits anyone concerned about the dignity of the American presidency. Last week he sent invitations to investors in this stuff. "HAVE DINNER WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP," they blared. "The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World," limited to the top "220 $TRUMP Meme Coin Holders," offering a private dinner with the president of the United States if they simply line his pockets with enough cash. "Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins you own," recipients were exhorted. $TRUMP's value soared after the invitation went out.

Americans harboring the quaint hope that their president isn't selling his office for his personal gain should, well, harbor some other hope.

Several years ago, the SEC launched an investigation into Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and in 2023 charged Sun with "fraudulently manipulating the secondary market." But then Our Swamp Drainer got busy draining the swamp. Shortly after Trump's election in November, Sun purchased first $30 million, and then another $45 million, in crypto tokens from a Trump family-owned crypto company.

Then the darndest thing happened. Two months ago, Trump's SEC asked the federal court presiding over the case against Sun and his companies "to stay this case to allow the Parties to explore a potential resolution." Oh yes: in announcing the $75 million total purchase of Trump crypto tokens, making him the largest investor in Trump's company, Sun announced what we already surmised: he was "committed to making America great again."

There's a bit(coin) of a pattern here.

In 2023, the SEC had sued Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, alleging a number of violations of SEC rules and regulations. After Trump was elected, Coinbase got a sort of "crypto religion," or, put differently, the coin dropped. It donated tens of millions of dollars to a PAC that has been a significant supporter of Republican candidates and campaign committees, and contributed $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee. The darndest thing happened again: In February, the SEC dismissed its lawsuit against Coinbase.

We know, we know: It's more fake news.

But this has been the way it's gone across the board. "Crypto has just been another addition to the portfolio of conflicts of interest that Trump and his family have," says Corey Frayer, a former SEC official.

And we're only 100 days into this presidency. As long as America has millions of sleeping ostriches, we're going to see plenty more where this came from.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment, he is a longtime columnist for the Boston Herald, writing on politics, national security, human rights and the Mideast.