Birthright Citizens, Donald Trump’s “Honest Graft”

Birthright Citizens, Donald Trump’s “Honest Graft”

Birthright Citizens

The star of the U.S. World Cup team who was unfairly red-carded is a birthright baby. Folarin Balogun was born in Brooklyn by sheer happenstance — his Nigerian-born parents were visiting the United States when his mother was seven months pregnant. When they tried to return to Britain, she wasn’t able to fly because of her pregnancy. Once Folarin was born, the family left for England, where he was raised.

He’s in good company. Other notable birthright citizens include Kamala Harris, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio, Mehmet Oz, Bruce Lee, Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson, Michelle Kwan, Tammy Duckworth, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Joan Rivers, Renée Zellweger, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Ajit Pai, Seema Verma, Elaine Chao, Kash Patel, Usha Vance, and Alex Padilla. All are noteworthy, but as of this writing, many people — including my son — would argue that the most important one is Folarin Balogun.

Trump Netted a Fortune Off Crypto While Others Lost Theirs — Ho Hum

Last year I joked about the president’s memecoins. His digital tokens, sold by his family’s World Liberty Financial, netted the president $800 million. But two-thirds of the buyers of the coin are currently underwater. Trump called bitcoin a “scam” back in 2021. He was right. But that didn’t stop his family’s crypto business from flourishing despite the obvious conflicts of interest. P.T. Barnum was right. $TRUMP surged to a peak market capitalization of nearly $15 billion before plunging 97% to about $400 million today.

Trump and the White House pooh-poohed any suggestion of a conflict of interest. “You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market is going up. We’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash,” the president said. One observer put it more bluntly regarding the windfall from the crypto sale: “It looks like it was a great monetization vehicle for him and his family, and he’s taking care of his own.”

Also the president’s disclosure documents show that entities from the Gulf paid around $300 million to the president’s businesses last year. More than $2 billion in revenue across his businesses, including $263 million from selling half his stake in World Liberty Financial to a company backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — whose brother is president of the United Arab Emirates.

Hey, no conflict there! Of course, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said “the breadth and depth of this filing further underscores our commitment to transparency,” and a White House spokeswoman insisted, “There are no conflicts of interest.”

Sure.

In a series of trades on April 3 and April 4 — days after Trump announced global tariffs — his investment accounts bought and sold hundreds of individual stocks. Those trades were among more than 21,000 moves by Trump’s investment accounts around “Liberation Day.” Insider information, anyone? The president’s accounts made hundreds of individual trades a day that April, moving an average of $4.2 million daily.

The president’s response: “Who, me? My kids run it. Almost anything they do… they have inside information. I tell my kids to stay away from as much as you can stay away from, but they also have a life.” Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Vulcan Elements three months before the company received a $620 million government loan. The Trump administration offered a $1.6 billion in financing for a project to develop a tungsten mine in Kazakhstan — and a firm partly owned by Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. invested in a company backing that same project shortly before the administration announced its minerals deal with Kazakhstan. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest.”

Sure.

His accounts bought $250,000 worth of Intel stock. Days later, Trump announced the government was taking a 10% equity stake in Intel whose stock rose more than 370%. He also purchased $155,000 in MP Materials, a rare-earth miner, shortly before his administration acquired a 15% equity stake in the company. It’s share price skyrocketed. Then Trump’s investment accounts sold some of their MP shares. Hia financial disclosure shows capital gains of $1 million in capital gains last year from that rare-earths stake.

In July 2025, the White House unveiled an “AI Action Plan,” billed as a blueprint for winning the artificial-intelligence race. That same day, one Trump investment account bought between $6 million and $30 million worth of stock — at least $1 million apiece in Broadcom, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, plus a separate purchase of at least $1 million in Alphabet shares, according to the disclosures.

The Wall Street Journal has a name for all this: “honest graft.” As the paper put it, the main difference between Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings and the Trump family’s projects is that the Trumps are brazenly open about theirs. Hey, the man’s got to make back all that money he spent on lawyers defending himself against all the lawsuits and investigations cooked up by Biden and his cronies. 

Right?

Yes I know that Clinton, Obama and Biden enriched themselves too. But I also know that when Omar disclosed that she and her husband’s wealth had miraculously increased from around $40,000 to $30 million, the republicans demanded investigations into the source of her income and her husband’s business ventures. Omar’s gains are chump change compared to Trump and his family – let’s not forget Jared and Ivanka’s island in Albania. Where are the republican demands for investigations of the president?