‘The gloves are off’: Trump appears poised to cash in from his presidency in new ways

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump released meme coins just days before he took the oath of office. A splashy pre-inaugural party was held at a property his company owns. And a Saudi-backed golf tournament is headed to a Trump club this spring.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump released meme coins just days before he took the oath of office. A splashy pre-inaugural party was held at a property his company owns. And a Saudi-backed golf tournament is headed to a Trump club this spring. Trump’s latest money-making moves are raising alarms among ethics watchdogs who say that, just days into his presidency, the Republican appears poised to benefit financially from his final term in office in new and lucrative ways. During his first four years in office, Trump’s team paid “lip service” to ethics guardrails, said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the liberal group Public Citizen, which this week sued the Trump administration over a separate issue – claiming that Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is operating in violation of a federal transparency law that governs advisory panels. “This time, it feels like the gloves are off, and they have no intention of comporting themselves with the decorum and ethical standards of other administrations,” Gilbert said. “They truly mean to make as much as they can on the backs of the American taxpayer.” Asked this week by a reporter whether he intended to keep selling products, such as the meme coin, that benefit him personally, Trump said: “I don’t know if it benefited.” The president said he wasn’t aware of exactly how much he had made from the new cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, despite the coin’s value soaring to billions of dollars, according to CoinMarketCap.