Senator Bernie Sanders shared a New Yorker investigation documenting what may be the most brazen financial exploitation of the American presidency in history — a running tally that has now crossed the $4 billion mark.
Sanders posted the article on X, drawing renewed attention to an investigation by David D. Kirkpatrick that has been tracking the Trump family’s financial gains since the beginning of the second term.
The Numbers
According to The New Yorker’s reporting, the President and members of his family have accumulated approximately $4 billion by leveraging his position in the White House. The figure was $3.4 billion as of August 2025. In the months since, a blitz of foreign mega-deals and cryptocurrency ventures pushed the total past the $4 billion threshold.
The Trumps have launched at least five different cryptocurrency enterprises, all of which leverage Trump’s status as President to attract buyers and investors. Crypto alone has netted the family approximately $650 million since August. Foreign business deals — shadowed by what ethics watchdogs describe as unprecedented conflicts of interest — account for much of the rest.
Without Precedent
What distinguishes this from the financial controversies of previous administrations is not merely scale — it is openness. Ethics organizations have noted that no other American President has so nakedly exploited the office for personal enrichment, nor on anything approaching this magnitude.
The deals are not hidden. They are not structured through blind trusts or insulated from presidential decision-making. They are conducted in plain sight, often by family members who maintain direct access to the President while simultaneously negotiating with foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds.
For Sanders, the article reinforces a central argument he has made for decades — that the American political system has been captured by the wealthy at the expense of working people. When a sitting President can accumulate $4 billion while tens of millions of Americans struggle with housing costs, medical debt, and stagnant wages, the system is not merely broken. It is functioning exactly as designed — for someone else.
The question the investigation raises is not whether the profiteering will stop. It is whether anyone with the power to stop it has the will to try.
