Trump, Crypto, Terrorists, and a Classic 80s Movie Walk into A Bar...
This week, a Reuters report led with this paragraph:
“A crypto venture recently unveiled by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his new Middle East envoy, billionaire Steve Witkoff, has partnered with a crypto platform that authorities and financial experts say has been used by criminals and Iran-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. (Emphasis mine)
World Liberty Financial Inc, founded by the Witkoff family two months before November’s U.S. election with Trump as a financial beneficiary, presents concerns over ethics and conflicts of interest, say six specialists in U.S. government ethics.”
I reprint their copy above not to generate online outrage, but to illustrate just how far into the Neo-American Epoch we already are. In the Before Times, prior to the Trumposcene era, members of a candidate’s staff, campaign, and legal teams would have waved red flags against such behavior, even in a pre-election, non-campaign period.
“You can’t get into bed with a billionaire and his shady financial platform used by terorists!” They’d have cried. “
Let's stick with Steve Witkoff for a minute. Reuters reports, “Diplomats said they were surprised when Witkoff, a New York real-estate investor, was named special Middle East envoy on Nov. 12 given his lack of foreign policy experience.”
What? The guy at the middle of setting up a get-rich-quick operation for the soon-to-be President of the United States doesn’t have experience? What is this world coming to? How could this be? For shame, I say! For shame!
The American government now is well and truly the Trump family business and we’re the voting shareholders who chose to make it theirs. In his latest book, The Handover, Professor David Runciman writes:
“Roman republicanism tried to limit the power of prominent families, while repeatedly falling prey to them. The modern American republic - the land of the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bushes, [the Obamas,] the Trumps, the Bidens, is much the same. It’s not hard to draw a line from then to now.”
Certainly of the families Runciman cites, American voters gave them the power to govern which subsequently led to the ability to access enormous wealth, fame, prestige and continuning political sway, if not outright power.
With the Trumps, though, we’ve given away the whole store, snake oil in the front, snake oil in the back, a cash-heavy business (of which Trump and friends are due 75% of ‘some’ revenues) where the carnival barkers and ne’er-do-wells make out like bandits and more than half of us shrug.
To ensure that it stays in the family, though, “Witkoff’s sons Alex and Zach, are also listed as co-founders of World Liberty.” Trump’s second son, Eric, told Reuters he is “very involved” with the company. Ya know, I’m gettin’ real sick of guys named ‘Alex, Zach, and Eric.”
Dear God, Carlin, where are you when we need you most!
For its part, the crypto platform, Tron, (the founder must be a huge ‘80s fan) is run by a Chinese-born man, Justin Sun, who in 2023 was charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lucky for him, he invested $30 million in Trump’s new scheme, he’s based in Switzerland, and is unlikely to see the case against him pursued as of 12 pm on Monday, January 20th, 2025.
Oh, the whole kit-and-kaboodle is also based in the British Virgin Islands. John LeCarre would have swatted away an aspiring novelist with this tale, and he was among the greatest illustrators of deep and dark power.
We’ve gone too long without talking about some of Tron’s shadier customers: Terrorist organizations. In what I will call the “Section 230 Excuse” Justin Sun said of bad guys using his technology, “Has attracted both lawful users and those with illicit motives,” and “has taken proactive measures to address illicit users on its network.”
I came up with a tagline for them, let me know what you think:
Tron: Uber but for Terrorist Financing
The crypto industry itself poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 campaign. While the Biden Administration has been cool to the blockchain, Trump promised anything and everything to this odd, cagey group.
Note: I met many of the early evangelists and conferences a decade ago. I thought they were weird then, all this confirms my initial belief.
Their investments paid off, politically and financially, but a comment by Eric Trump at a recent crypto conference in Abu Dhabi demonstrated the ongoing de-moralizing of everything. When asked about Tron’s shady users, Trump “said traditional financial institutions were also used to funnel “bad money.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the underlying ethos to the entire Trump operation: Everyone is crooked, always has been, and we’re not better or no worse than anyone else. The only difference, we’re honest about our dishonesty.
They have no expectation of anyone else ever doing the right thing or acting appropriately or by the rulebook because they never have and too many other wealthy and powerful people haven’t either. Remember when Trump, responding to a question about Vladimir Putin murdering his opponents said, “Like America doesn’t kill people?”
There used to be complaints about “moral equivalency.” Trump espouses “amoral equivalency.” Everybody is a crook and a thief, what’s the big deal?
If we were pitching this movie in Hollywood, we’d be laughed out of the room. No screenwriter sitting on a studio lot could make up this story. Why? Because as we’ve seen for nigh on a decade, our imaginations just aren’t broad enough.
They may never be, but we should at least understand the reality, such as it is, we’re living in.
News and Notes:
Check out the latest epsisode of The Home Front Podcast, up now! Join me and disinformation Nina Jankowicz for a discussion about how deepfake porn has come to Congress and what Trump’s return means for trusting anything his government will say come next month.
If you’ve come this far, please come a little further. Go to Sez.us today and sign up for the social media network for sanity. As the digital space splinters, let a thousand flowers bloom!
It is one big grift and close to 50% of voters are okay with that.