From the very beginning, one thing has been abundantly clear about the Trump administration.

They're open for business. But doesn't exactly seem like it's the kind of business that's ever really on the level.

Trump's inaugural fund raised a record $239 million, and very shortly thereafter, we started seeing the people in groups that donated that money get their money's worth.

I mean, one fossil fuel executive donated $4 million.

That same day, he got nominated to be Trump's ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Financial institutions like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America donated millions of dollars.

And shortly thereafter, the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau ended a case against those same banks for not protecting consumers from fraud in the

Zell banking app. There you go. The SEC dropped an inquiry into the financial company Robin Hood

after it donated $2 million to Trump's inauguration. A very similar thing happened after a donation from

the company Coinbase. Somehow, the Trump administration just happened to drop or pause cases

against at least 17 of the corporations that funded his inauguration. Now, I should be clear that

there's no direct evidence that any of these donations are linked to the actions that follow them. But of course, this is a pattern that has continued far beyond Trump's inauguration.

I mean, right after Trump won the election, crypto billionaire Justin Sun decided it would be a

good idea to start investing tens of millions of dollars into the Trump family crypto business.

At the time, Sun was in hot water with the SEC.

The agency had charged him with fraud related to a large cryptocurrency manipulation scheme.

But barely more than a month after Trump was sworn into office,

after Sun had reportedly invested $75 million into the Trump family cryptocurrency company, the SEC paused its case against him.

How about that? We saw an incredibly similar thing happen with another case. Now, as much as all of this

resembles in a massive pay-to-play enterprise, the Trump administration, of course, denies that anyone has brought

special treatment from the administration. But check this out. The New York Times looked at just

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