Yves here. When Trump launched his crypt venture and his meme coin, many experts pointed out that they would make it easy to bribe Trump. That appears to have been a feature as opposed to a bug. As the post below describes, the New York Times found a likely-looking instance, of a $2 billion investment from the UAE. How many others are there? Recall that CalPERS Chief Investment Officer resigned over our exposing a similar type of conflict of interest, of owning the stock of Blackstone when he approved a $1 billion CalPERS in a Blackstone fund, as opposed to recusing himself.
Twitterverse has taken note:
I'm sure it's purely coincidental that 2 wks after a UAE sheik invested *TWO BILLION DOLLARS* in a crypto company run by the Trumps + one of Trump's cronies the US Government granted that UAE sheik access to scarce microchips that would benefit his country. NOTHING TO SEE HERE🙄 pic.twitter.com/CjSFM7swmT
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) September 15, 2025
One NSC official stood between what appears to be a wildly corrupt deal involving the UAE, AI chips, and China. Then Laura Loomer intervened and got him fired. (She says it had nothing to do with the chip deal). https://t.co/vxM78eo5fL pic.twitter.com/Y64sq1U4yH
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) September 15, 2025
US NatSec experts were concerned the Trump administration's deal to give UAE our best AI chips would end up helping China.
These experts were sidelined or even fired.
Instead, Trump took $2 billion from UAE and gave them exactly what they wanted… $WLFI @worldlibertyfi pic.twitter.com/sRjmPW0ue0
— Derek Martin (@dmartkc) September 15, 2025
And some called out the bad optics in real time. Note the date of this tweet:
Two stories, same day, I’m sure totally unrelated…
(left) NYT: UAE pours $2 billion into Trump crypto coins
(right) Bloomberg: Trump White House may ease restrictions on selling AI chips to UAE pic.twitter.com/ZM92r6gDIj
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) May 1, 2025
By Brad Reed, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
The New York Times on Monday published a blockbuster report detailing how US President Donald Trump’s administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to high-powered artificial intelligence chips just days after receiving a massive investment in Trump’s cryptocurrency startup.
As the Times report documented, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) ruling family, had one of his investment firms deposit $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Just two weeks later, wrote the Times, “the White House agreed to allow the UAE access to hundreds of thousands of the world’s most advanced and scarce computer chips, a crucial tool in the high-stakes race to dominate artificial intelligence,” despite national security concerns about these chips being shared with China.
The Times, which interviewed more than 75 people in its investigation of the deals, did not present direct evidence that the two deals were explicitly linked, and the White House denied any connection between the massive investment in the Trump family’s crypto firm and the decision to grant UAE access to the chips.
However, the paper interviewed three ethics lawyers who said that “the back-to-back deals violate longstanding norms in the United States for political, diplomatic, and private dealmaking among senior officials and their children.”
Other political observers were stunned by the Times’ report.
“If this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States and it’s not even close,” commented Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
US foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen questioned whether Witkoff’s dealings with the UAE and other countries were impacting his ability to do his job in other areas.
“Maybe Witkoff is too busy pushing deals to enrich his and Trump’s families to focus on getting an Israel–Gaza hostage deal over the line, recognizing the Russians are not interested in ending the war on Ukraine, etc.,” she speculated.
Alasdair Phillips-Robins, a fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, marveled at the reporting that Trump’s negotiation team appeared to be willing to grant UAE access to the chips without forcing any major geopolitical tradeoffs.
“This sounds like the world’s weakest negotiation: telling the UAE they’ll get unlimited chips before they’ve agreed to a single concession in return,” he wrote.
Independent journalist Jacob Silverman, who has written extensively on the politics of the US tech industry, remarkedthat the Trump administration’s actions exposed in the Times report were “impeachable” and smacked of “incredible corruption.”
In addition to his cryptocurrency-related dealings with UAE, Trump has also come under scrutiny for accepting a luxury jet from the government of Qatar that he plans to use for the remainder of his term in office and that will be given to his official presidential library after he leaves the White House.
Agree with the incredible but does the NYT consider the scandal to be Trump family profiteering or Trump selling chips to our “enemy” China? Trump’s modus operandi seems to be to use his power to make something–free trade, chips–inacessible and then use his power to sell access. More mainstream corruption seems to be the creation of an imaginary enemy–Putin, Xi–in order to boost the arms industry/think tank/national newspaper complex. Just a thought.
But you’ve got to start somewhere. Impeach him. Please. Sounds like they finally have a valid reason.
Too bad the Democrats wasted years impeaching him over nothing and then wasted a few more with all the bogus lawfare. Now when he’s actually doing something nasty, or lots of somethings, they clam up.
I do have to wonder if the reason they don’t go after him on some of this stuff is because so many of them are guilty of similar crimes, just less blatantly so. They are also probably extremely scared of him at this point. I mentioned previously being at a table last November with a high ranking Congressperson who indicated they were scared of Trump retaliating. Also, on the first go round, Trump was probably as surprised as anyone that he won, and he didn’t have much of a power base. Now he’s pals with psychos like Peter Thiel and his surveillance machine. His kit is probably not actually as good as advertised, but I bet he can get the goods on geriatric Congresspeople whose use “password” as their password.
Of course the Dems have clammed up because they intend to do it too.
Have I mentioned that the Congressperson in question has also said that they might have seen Sam Bankman Fried in the hallway, but definitely did not know him, and said this as a member of the Congressional fundraising committee?
Hillary was pre-impeached by not getting elected. Her shifty conduct did play a role.
The theory with Trump was that he was already rich and didn’t need a slush fund. Fat chance. Turns out he has a family of hangers on including his son in law.
Even Putin and Xi could influence the President of the United States through their oligarchs buying $TRUMP. It’s unclear why they haven’t done so yet.
Very bad, but slush funds are not unprecedented. Trump could make a point by starting a new coin and calling it “Clinton Foundation”.
This is really a difference in kind.
Trump has dabbled in charities before. Crypto is a whole new world for crime.
When the term chips is used don’t they really mean GPUs??
One can observe USA “meritocracy” in action.
Apparently the Bush Jr administration’s Douglas Feith’s son, David, landed an important job that he was fired from with Laura Loomers prodding.
His father was characterized by General Tommy Franks as “The stupidest guy on the face of the planet” after Feith senior led the policy operation that encouraged the Iraq War II with faulty intelligence.
The family got another chance for public service redemption.
But Laura Loomer ended it.
Douglas Feith’s Wikipedia page is seems to always have him landing on his feet in academia/think tank land.
Maybe the same applies for his son..
The most striking thing: these are all a bunch of “trust fund babies” making deals with each other, people who received their start in life from inherited money.
It’s much like watching over-entitled babies with global influence and dangerous weapons.