Trump didn't drain the swamp. He turned it into a cesspool

[babylonsister]

Trump didn’t drain the swamp. He turned it into a cesspool
Steven Greenhouse
The president’s second term has been full of donors seeking access, favors for billionaires and apparent conflicts of interest
Thu 14 May 2026 08.00 EDT


Every time Donald Trump has run for president, he has vowed to drain the swamp in Washington. But ever since he returned to the White House, not only has he not even tried to drain the swamp, he has pushed to gild it. Trump has used all the gold and glitz he can to cover up an increasingly putrid swamp – a morass filled with million-dollar donors scrambling for access, criminals seeking to buy pardons, corporate executives appointed to high-level government jobs and billionaire sycophants sucking up to Trump.

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A particularly putrid part of the swamp involves Trump’s ties with Jeffrey Epstein, a one-time buddy. While running for president, Trump vowed to release the Epstein files, but after he won, he dismissed calls to release them. The files became public only after a bipartisan congressional petition effort forced their release.

Trump’s planned gilded ballroom – with an estimated price of more than $400m – has become a huge swamp in itself. Trump’s money machine has hit up corporations and billionaires for millions in donations that are often made with the hope, even the expectation, that donors will receive important favors in return. Since Trump won a second term, he and his allies have raised almost $2bn for his pet causes and projects, including the ballroom. According to a New York Times study, 346 donors have given at least $250,000 each to Trump’s projects and causes, and more than half of those donors or their industries have benefited from subsequent actions or statements by Trump or his administration. Take the tech company Palantir, which donated $10m to the ballroom. Palantir already has hundreds of millions in federal contracts and hopes to win more to help build Trump’s $1.2tn “Golden Dome” missile defense project.

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Let’s not forget that, in part apparently to minimize investigations of his administration’s swampy shenanigans, Trump fired more than 15 independent inspectors general. If those agency officials were still in office, they would probably be blowing the whistle on many Trump administration conflicts of interest and ethical messes.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/14/trump-drain-the-swap-billionaires