Two Crime Families Do Not Make an Honest Town

Erick Erickson on Jul 24, 2026

In tribal politics, we are not supposed to raise this. Someone should, and the truth does not care about your feelings.

Republicans built a decade-long movement on two promises: drain the swamp, and expose the Biden Crime Family. That investigation established Biden relatives took more than $10 million from foreign sources but never tied a payment to an official act. Set that standard against this administration's own disclosures. The men who promised to drain the swamp are cashing in.

Start with crypto. President Donald Trump's 2026 disclosure put his income above $2 billion last year, $1.4 billion of it from crypto. World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Trump and his sons, routes 75% of token proceeds to the family; he reported over $500 million from those sales alone. The $TRUMP memecoin peaked near $15 billion, then fell more than 90%, wiping out its buyers while the family kept the gains. Its top 220 holders got a black-tie dinner; the top 25 got the president. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board called it "cashing in on the Presidency in big and sketchy ways."

Then there is the foreign money, where swamp becomes sale. An Abu Dhabi state fund chaired by the UAE's national security adviser put $2 billion of World Liberty's stablecoin into a deal weeks before the White House cleared the UAE to buy advanced American AI chips. Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy, co-founded World Liberty and still held an interest while negotiating with the governments investing in it. Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners manages more than $6 billion, 99% foreign, including $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign fund, while he serves as peace envoy to those governments. Not every deal reeks, but the tangle is the danger. The New York Times counts nearly 30 foreign ventures tied personally to this president, unlike any before him.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department, at Trump's direction, is investigating ActBlue over a few hundred small foreign card transactions. You cannot chase the trickle while opening the floodgate on your own side.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's old firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, now run by his sons, manages reserves for the stablecoin giant Tether. One day after Lutnick moved his stake into a trust for his children, Tether lent that trust money. Donald Trump Jr. took $300,000 in free Kalshi equity while advising its rival Polymarket, and federal enforcement actions against both firms vanished. The president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, whose exchange helped build World Liberty's stablecoin.

Prediction markets carry a second problem. An Army soldier has been charged with using classified intelligence about the Maduro operation to win $400,000 on Polymarket. The New York Times found more than eighty accounts placing well-timed wagers, some hours before strikes on Iran. The soldier will be punished. Men in the president's orbit will be pardoned, and some will excuse it with, "Joe Biden pardoned people, too."

Here is what gets lost in the scorekeeping. It does not matter whether each arrangement is legal. The swamp was never a legal problem; it was a trust problem. When access to a president can be bought with a memecoin and a black-tie ticket, every ambitious operator learns the spoils go to whoever holds power and restraint is for suckers.

Only 17% of Americans trust the federal government to do right most of the time, and two-thirds call it corrupt. Each deal confirms the cynic and drives honest people out. If the game is rigged, why play it clean? A spoils system enriches the connected, attracts the worst, and repels everyone else. The answer to a rival's corruption was never to match it and call the ledger even. Two crime families do not make an honest town.

Heading into the midterms, Democrats can tell independents that a government this entangled with foreign money needs more oversight, not less. Voters notice when the referee is on the take.

If we meant what we said in 2016, the test applies to us: no foreign money to the president's family while that government awaits a decision; no regulators dropping cases against companies the first family owns; no betting on state secrets; real divestment, not divestment to your children. Drain the swamp. Don't just recycle the water for our side.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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