U.S. Representative Greg Landsman (D-OH), who beat 13-term incumbent Republican Congressman Steve Chabot in 2022, is promoting his list of four reasons “why this presidency” will “likely go down as the most corrupt presidency in American history.”
Below are the four reasons for Landsman’s claim. The following are all direct quotes from the Congressman.
1. The $TRUMP coin. Think of it like a Swiss bank account. People are depositing money. We don’t know who or what amount, but it’s a ton of money. He’s making an absurd amount of money.
1. The $TRUMP coin.
— Congressman Greg Landsman (@RepGregLandsman) June 3, 2025
Think of it like a Swiss bank account. People are depositing money. We don’t know who or what amount, but it’s a ton of money.
He’s making an absurd amount of money. pic.twitter.com/CKZPhGk0HK
2. Real estate investments. The Trump family is using the presidency to get money for their businesses. For example, investors in Saudi Arabia gave something like $1 billion to a Trump hotel in Dubai.
3. Bribe plane. The Qataris gave the president a $400 million plane. It will take about $1 billion and three years to fix this plane. It’s a boondoggle and it’s expensive for taxpayers.
4. Elon Musk and billionaire donors. They gave the president and Republicans in Congress hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns. Those donations bought them access to power, our data systems, and to more federal contracts.
Without listing other ethically challenged presidents — Nixon, Harding, etc. — to help validate his claim that Trump is the “most” corrupt, Landsman concludes: “This is pure corruption and it has to end. We need bipartisan legislation banning all of this.”
[NOTE: Legislation against much of what Landsman accuses Trump of doing has existed since the birth of the nation, in the form of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. And the Ohio Democrat is not the first lawmaker to try to hold Trump accountable over the allegedly porous boundaries between his government role and his private businesses.
As Constitution.gov reports, during Trump’s first term in office “private parties, state attorneys general, and Members of Congress sued the President based on alleged violations of both the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. Three major federal lawsuits concerning the Emoluments Clauses were filed against President Trump. Over nearly four years, these cases progressed through the lower federal courts, resulting in the first significant judicial decisions on the Emoluments Clauses. In late 2020, the Supreme Court denied review in one of these cases, and—after the end of President Trump’s term in January 2021—instructed two federal appellate courts to vacate their judgments and dismiss the other two cases as moot.”]
More than one X user replied to Landsman with accusations that the Biden administration was similarly corrupt — a legacy of Kentucky Rep. James Comer‘s fruitless but unrelenting investigations into the so-called “Biden crime family.” More replies contained complaints against members of Congress, many of whom take millions in corporate donations and trade stocks while in office despite working on legislation that impacts the industries they are investing in.
Still others point out that Democrats are no strangers to billionaire donors either, though Landsman’s accusations suggest a straight-up quid pro quo at work, wherein the billionaires like Musk receive from Trump access to terabytes of private citizen data and rubber-stamped federal contracts as payback.
It’s a landscape where Landsman’s accusations — potent as they are — hit an electorate that has become sufficiently jaded by money in politics that it is hard to arouse. As one commenter chimed in: “Almost all politicians on both sides end up corrupt. They do the will of special interests and lobbyists. It’s been that way for awhile.”
Others voiced their surprise at Landsman for his relatively small list of reasons supporting Trump’s status as the alleged king of corruption, “Only 4?”
