Charly M.

The donor list for Trump's ballroom is finally public, and it blows the lid off a huge can of worms. There’s a LOT here, so let’s break it down: 1) Surprise, surprise...a ton of the donors conveniently got things they wanted after donating, and several of them asked to remain anonymous. Makes you wonder why. 2) Roughly HALF of the money for the ballroom came from companies or executives whose firms have had federal contracts under Trump. 3) Julio Herrera Velutini, an international banker indicted on bribery charges, was pardoned after his daughter gave $3.5 million to Trump’s PAC and pledged another $2.5 million for the ballroom. Trump pardoned him after the first check for the ballroom hit. 4) Charles Ergen, a telecoms exec whose company was being investigated by the FCC, had a closed-door meeting with Trump and the Chair of the FCC. That meeting reportedly involved talks about his political donations. The Administration dropped the investigation, and Ergen donated a total of $25 million. 5) Rocket, a housing fintech company, needed federal approval of a major acquisition. The deal raised a ton of questions from lawmakers about potential anticompetitive business practices. The Trump Administration gave the company the green light, and three weeks later, a Rocket subsidiary donated $10 million to the ballroom. 6) Salesforce committed a total of $3 million in three installments. Between those payments, the Army awarded the company a $5.6 billion contract, the largest public government contract in the company's history. 7) ServiceNow committed $5 million just one month after the federal government announced a deal to make their AI software available across federal agencies. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Trump has created a system where the people who need something from his government know exactly how to get his attention. These companies and executives are foaming at the mouth to shower him with money, because he’s made it clear that he’ll help them in exchange. There is no honest word for that other than corruption. washingtonpost.com/investiga…