Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV

He’s off and running, prepared to implement the latest, newest, up-to-datest Trump branded presidency. Armed with the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, Donald Trump isn’t even the president yet, and already he’s taken the first law he doesn’t intend to obey and thrown it under the rule of law bus. Yesterday, Trump’s transition signed memorandums of understanding with the Biden White House and the General Services Administration to begin the transition from one administration to another. Not signing the agreements mandated by the Presidential Transition Act was Donald Trump himself.

Included in the agreements, mandated by the Transition Act, was a “robust” ethics plan requiring Trump transition team members to avoid conflicts of interest during the transition. Notably absent was a corresponding ethics pledge signed by the president-elect, also mandated by the Transition Act. Part of such an ethics pledge, which has been signed by every president since the passage of the act in 1963, would be a plan for Trump to divest himself of assets and stock holdings which might present problems of conflict of interest once he takes office. Trump signed a notably loose ethics plan when he was first elected president in 2016. The ethics pledge did not put his holdings in the Trump Organization, his main source of income, in a blind trust, but instead turned over management of his company to his two older sons, who continued to report to him throughout his presidency.

This time, Trump has already announced that he will not sell or otherwise shelter his interest in Trump Media and Technology Group, the main asset of which is Truth Social. “I HAVE NO INTENTION OF SELLING!” Trump announced on Truth Social three days after winning election earlier this month.

Trump apparently also prevented the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the Department of Justice. Under normal circumstances, the DOJ would use the FBI to conduct background checks and security investigations. Not this time: Trump nominees are not receiving background checks and clearances necessary for them to see classified information and receive national security briefings during the transition.

It is unprecedented for a president-elect not to sign a transition memorandum of agreement. Under the Transition Act, Trump would have to sign not only an ethics agreement, but a pledge not to use private donations to fund his transition. The refusal of Trump to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Biden White House allows him to solicit unlimited funds from private donors to be used during the transition and after his inauguration.

During the preparations for Trump’s first inaugural celebrations in 2017, including formal balls on Inauguration night, the Trump inaugural committee, which was funded by private donations, paid $26 million to an event planner who was a friend of Melania Trump. She had established the company in December of 2016, only six weeks before the inaugural galas would be held. How the $26 million paid to her instantly-established company was spent, and on what, to whom it was paid, and who received the company profits was never made clear.

Trump’s attitude about his first transition was revealed in an article in the Guardian by Michael Lewis, the business reporter who wrote the bestselling book, “The Big Short.” Former New Jersey Chris Christie had been put in charge of the Trump transition even before Trump won election in November of 2016. Before election day, as other presidential campaigns had done before, Christie established a transition office in Washington D.C. and staffed it with more than 100 employees, some of whom were volunteers, and funded the office with several million dollars in private donations. Trump was unaware of his own transition preparations until he read about it in the paper. He proceeded to call his campaign chairman, Steve Bannon, into his office on the 26^th floor of Trump Tower, where he was berating Christie for concealing the transition preparations from him. What he was really mad about, however, was the money Christie had raised.

Bannon walked into Trump’s office to find him yelling at Christie about the transition money. “You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?” Trump screamed at Christie. Lewis reported that when Bannon walked in, he turned on Bannon and screamed, “Why are you letting him steal my fucking money!”

Bannon and Christie sat down with Trump and attempted to explain the Transition Act to him, how the General Services Administration provides office space to the transition, but the employees were paid for by the campaign. “Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money,” Trump screamed at them. According to Lewis, Bannon and Christie then tried to explain to Trump that there could be no transition without money raised by the campaign to pay the staff. Told that set of facts, Trump told them, “Shut it down. Shut down the transition.” Lewis reported that Bannon was able to get Trump to change his mind about shutting down his own transition when he asked Trump, “What do you think Morning Joe will say if you shut down your transition?” Bannon pointed out that shutting down his transition office would make it look like Trump thought he wasn’t going to win the election.

Only then did Trump relent, but he kept after Christie about every dollar he raised for the transition, repeatedly calling it “my money.”

And so here we are again, with another prospective Trump administration apparently raising a massive slush fund of transition money, the source of which doesn’t have to be reported, nor does how the money is spent, who gets it, and what it’s used for. If past is prologue, and with Donald Trump, I think we can count on at least some of the money being donated for Trump’s transition going directly into his own pockets, because in his mind, the money belongs to him.

The word “guardrails” appears in article after article published over the last few days about Trump’s transition. The “guardrails” of FBI background checks on his nominees are gone. The “guardrails” on security investigations for top secret security clearances are gone. One article published yesterday reported that the Trump transition’s plan for background and security checks is that none will be carried out on a single nominee until Trump has seized control of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The other “guardrail” that has disappeared is a commitment by Trump to abide by the kind of ethical standards that every other modern president has followed. Trump slid by that one in 2016 by signing an ethics pledge with no teeth because he maintained his ownership of everything in his business portfolio, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where foreign governments rented entire blocks of rooms that they never even bothered to occupy, knowing that the room fees were going directly to the president of the United States through his ownership of the hotel.

Well, it’s not 2016 anymore. It’s 2024. The Trump name has been removed from the old D.C. Post Office building which was transformed into the Trump International Hotel, and it is under new management.

So is the new, completely ethics-free White House Trump will occupy come January 20, having refused to abide by the Transition Act ethics requirements. Trump made millions during his campaign selling everything from Trump NFT trading cards that were denominated in cryptocurrency, to Trump socks, to Trump jewelry, to Trump “Never Surrender” sneakers at $399 a pair. There are reports that Trump cleared $300,000 selling his Trump Bible for $60 a pop. You could also buy a limited edition Bible signed by Trump for $1000. Those exclusive items, supposedly produced in an edition of only 1,000, are still available on the “God Bless America” website.

Among other Trump-branded crap he sold during the campaign were Trump cologne and perfume, and the $100,000 Trump “Tourbillon” solid gold watch. The only problem with the watch is that it hasn’t been designed or produced yet, nor has which watch manufacturer will make it been made clear. But plonk down your hundred grand now, because there are only going to be 147 of them made. “47,” get it? The one hundred added to the “47” is just more money in Trump’s pocket.

All of this would be like something out of a Saturday Night Live sketch if it wasn’t a real possibility. There is already an official White House Gift Shop, established way back in 1946, that sells commemorative coins, a Space Force “seal” for $24.95, and even a 2018 Trump “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays” coin marked “scarce and limited” for $45.

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision has made pretty much anything Trump does in the White House legal so long as it can be called—by Trump, of course—“official.” Can’t you see the “official” White House Gift Shop selling “official” Trump “Never Surrender” sneakers and “official” Trump gold watches and official Trump NFT’s and “official” Trump hoodies? You’ll probably also be able to buy “official” World Liberty Financial “WLFI” crypto tokens, kind of a bitcoin for the MAGA faithful. Twenty percent of those tokens will be owned by the so-called “founding team” of Donald, Don Jr., and Eric Trump. Even Barron Trump is listed as the “DeFi visionary” of World Liberty Financial. Trump himself recently bragged that his youngest son “owns four wallets or something.”

Maybe the Trump White House Gift Shop will sell you the key to access YouTube videos produced by one of the other officers in World Liberty Financial, Chase Herro, who according to CoinDesk.com will oversee “data and strategies” for the company. Herro once owned a company called “Date Hotter Girls LLC,” which produced YouTube videos offering advice on how to pick up girls.

Who among us will be surprised if the TRUMP brand isn’t emblazoned on the North Portico of the White House with signs welded to the outer perimeter fence reading “Open for business! Gift Shop inside! We accept Bitcoin and WLFI tokens!”