Conor here: The first comment under the WSJ piece sums it up well:
The swamp has been drained and backfilled with radioactive waste. Unreal, but not surprising.
Once again, Trump is more brazen in his corruption and operates on a larger scale than his predecessors. It might be easier for Democrats to take him to task for such insane levels of corruption if they didn’t engage in the same behavior.
Trump’s corruption is on such an unimaginably grotesque scale that it hardly seems real. The unreality of it all serves as camouflage, partly explains why it hasn’t caused the same outrage as, say, Hunter Biden’s mere 7-figure Ukraine corruption.https://t.co/1EyPqKvU1u
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) February 1, 2026
The WSJ piece makes it appear that the decision to send highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology to the UAE was a quid pro quo for the hundreds of millions invested in the Trump family crypto scam.
One big question remains: is the corruption the driver or a sideline grift to a larger scheme?
Why, for example, did the administration also give the green light for exports to Saudi Arabia? Trump has an extensive financial history with the kingdom and perhaps there is another corruption story to come on that front, but it should be noted that the u-turn in advanced chip export policy from Biden to Trump is being celebrated in corners of think tanklandia.
For example, according to Navin Girishankar, president of the Economic Security and Technology Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), it has to do with a vision for dollar/stablecoin supremacy. He writes:
Access to American compute power will enable both Gulf countries to export AI-enabled goods and services in sectors such as autonomous logistics, precision agriculture, medical diagnostics, and finance.
The Trump administration aims to ensure that “American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide,” according to Vice President JD Vance. But these agreements miss an essential ingredient of American power: a guarantee that AI-enabled exports generated using American chips will be invoiced and settled in dollars.
…the United States should condition access to leading-edge chips on binding commitments to settle AI-enabled exports in dollars…the United States should use dollar-backed stablecoins as the settlement mechanism.
Of course when it comes to corruption and what passes as US global strategy one hand usually washes the other.
By Brad Reed, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Cross posted from Common Dreams.
A bombshell Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly backed a massive $500 million investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture months before the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology.
According to the Journal’s sources, lieutenants of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a deal in early 2025 to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Documents reviewed by the Journal showed that the buyers in the deal agreed to “pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities,” while “at least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with” the Witkoff family.
Weeks after green lighting the investment into the Trump crypto venture, Tahnoon met directly with President Donald Trump and Witkoff in the White House, where he reportedly expressed interest in working with the US on AI-related technology.
Two months after this, the Journal noted, “the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.”
Tahnoon in the past had tried to get US officials to give the UAE access to the chips, but was rebuffed on concerns that the cutting-edge technology could be passed along to top US geopolitical rival China, wrote the Journal.
Many observers expressed shock at the Journal’s report, with some critics saying that it showed Trump and his associates were engaging in a criminal bribery scheme.
“This was a bribe,” wrote Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, in a social media post. “UAE royals gave the Trump family $500 million, and Trump, in his presidential capacity, gave them access to tightly guarded American AI chips. The most powerful person on the planet, also happens to be the most shamelessly corrupt.”
Jesse Eisinger, reporter and editor at ProPublica, argued that the Abu Dhabi investment into the Trump cypto firm “should rank among the greatest US scandals ever.”
Democratic strategist David Axelrod also said that the scope of the Trump crypto investment scandal was historic in nature.
“In any other time or presidency, this story… would be an earthquake of a scandal,” he wrote. “The size, scope and implications of it are unprecedented and mind-boggling.”
Tommy Vietor, co-host of “Pod Save America,” struggled to wrap his head around the scale of corruption on display.
“How do you add up the cost of corruption this massive?” he wondered. “It’s not just that Trump is selling advanced AI tech to the highest bidder, national security be damned. Its that he’s tapped that doofus Steve Witkoff as an international emissary so his son Zach Witkoff can mop up bribes.”
Former Rep. Tom Malinkowski (D-NJ) warned the Trump and his associates that they could wind up paying a severe price for their deal with the UAE.
“If a future administration finds that such payments to the Trump family were acts of corruption,” he wrote, “these people could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, and the assets in the US could potentially be frozen.”
During Trump’s first term we heard a lot about his supposedly flagrant corruption, but in all the articles about Trump’s wrongdoing, they were very short on specifics. The only thing I remember being certain was that foreign officials would stay at his hotels – not a good look for sure, but it also wasn’t illegal for the president to own real estate. He was impeached twice over pretty much nothing and subjected to lawfare for years while not even in office.
All that did was lead him into the arms of the techbros. Now the financial corruption is blatant – he’s suborning the US$ in an attempt to create an alternate financial system for his personal benefit (along with creating a personal army) and we hear mostly crickets from the “opposition”.
An opposition is presumed to oppose. There is no evidence of that. There is evidence of a desire to regain power, and you will recall that Biden said at the beginning of his term that “nothing would fundamentally change” — and it has not, I conclude that the “opposition” will proceed on the same path. Faces change, the grift goes on.
Indeed. I just happen to know that at least one of the Congresspeople on the DCCC in charge of fundraising for the party and who has been included on the list of Congresspeople who don’t properly report their personal stock trades more than once also dabbles in personal crypto “investments”, because they told me so. I’d be shocked if this person were the only one.
Irony not being worth much these days, Benedict Donald killing the almighty buck, while garnering many billions of them in performance fees, is par for the course. He’ll up Weimar’ing us.
I’d wondered how he would go bankrupt next…
European retail investors who hold assets priced in USD are not happy, and quite a number seem to be looking for greener pastures, so-to-speak: the rats are fleeing the ship, does anyone notice?
“If a future administration finds that such payments to the Trump family were acts of corruption,” he wrote, “these people could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, and the assets in the US could potentially be frozen.”
————-
This explains the Qatar banking connection. I recall the Venezuelan crude oil is being paid for via a Trump account in Qatar. No doubt payments to Trump et al, such as this 500 mill from UAE are going through foreign accounts as well.
“Breathtaking..?”
Call me a cynic, but this level of corruption is anything but new, although Trump– showman that he is– seems both flamboyant and flagrant with his shameless and public display of the old quid pro quo: he doesn’t give a flying fuck about what anyone thinks ’cause there ain’t nobody who can or will do anything about it.
“Breathtaking…” Yeah, gimmie a break. I never liked soap operas, their melodramas, and I don’t ever think I’ve taken a puppet show for reality, although it does surprise (and saddens) me the number of adults who do.
For the Ruling Caste of the United States, law is a dead-letter, just like it always was, only now they don’t bother pretending otherwise.
Trump is but a symptom, not the disease.
The cancer is the privatization and politicization of justice by the elite caste that really began with the draft-dodging, pot-smoking, and philandering Baby-Boom generation. It came to a head under the rule of the first Boomers in the White House, Bill & Hill and has continued unabated, reaching its zenith under Obama, Geithner, and Holder’s “free pass” to the FIRE sector during the collapse of W Bush’s ZIRP Ponzi.
The legislative gerontocracy are more interested in hanging onto their sinecures than in effectively reining-in any of this corruption. Those in the legal profession and journalism are more interested in hanging onto their rice bowls than they are in upholding the Rule of Law. The response of a sociopath like Trump is, “Whadda ya gonna do about it?”
Rules for thee but not for me. The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone. It these dog-eat-dog end times of planetary limits, none of us is safe from the rapacity of the powerful and their minions.
I wonder if Gerald Ford (Nixon pardon) and George H. W. Bush (Cap Weinberger, et all pardons) are also part of the pot smoking-draft dodging class.
It appears the radio ad from a Sonoma County bailbondsman has applied for a long time.
“Friends don’t let friends do time.”
This is America, where a famous WW2 draft dodger can get an airport named after himself (John Wayne).
And 5 deferment Dick Cheney can be defense secretary.
When was this golden age of American justice?
I’m quite sure Trump noticed that nobody was very interested in investigating the very shady operations of the Clinton Foundation/Slush Fund and figured he’d give pay to play a try himself.