Mega grift

[Trump] has suggested the [Qatari gift] plane would [...] serve as a museum piece, like the decommissioned former Air Force One displayed at President Ronald Reagan’s library facility.

That is a curious claim. Will a so-called “flying palace” that US taxpayers may pay more than $1 billion to upgrade really just be parked at a to-be-determined site in Florida after just a few years of use?

  Mother Jones

Ooh. Ooh. I know: NO.

Trump left Qatar Thursday without a public announcement finalizing a deal for the plane.

But Trump’s explanation is part of a trend. The president, or unnamed aides, are regularly attempting to wave off ethical concerns by saying that various huge donations will eventually go to the “library.”

After he's dead?

Trump’s inaugural committee hasn’t said how much remains from the record-shattering $250 million raised via fealty displays from corporate chieftains. But the balance will go to the library, a “person close to the inauguration” told the Wall Street Journal. Proceeds from the million-dollar-a-plate fundraising dinners and $5 million-one-on-one meetings with the president—organized by the pro-Trump MAGA Inc PAC—are “all going to the library,” a “person familiar with the dinners” told Wired.

Then there are Meta (owner of Facebook) and Disney (owner of ABC News), which settled dubious lawsuits Trump had filed against them by pledging $22 million and $15 million, respectively, to Trump’s presidential library foundation.

Will this library be inside Mar-A-Lago? Because, there isn't actually an actual library being planned at this time.

Disney, in its a settlement actually said it would transfer settlement funds “to a presidential foundation and museum” before one existed. The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library was incorporated in Florida a few weeks later, apparently as a way to accept the settlement.

Concepts of a library.

Modern presidential libraries are set up by nonprofit foundations. They often take the form of hagiographic museums run in partnership with the National Archives. Trump’s library foundation has not indicated if it has yet sought IRS recognition as a nonprofit, and it hasn’t publicly announced a board of directors.

It's nothing but a name and a bank account to receive bribes.

Trump’s record with non-profit organizations leads to additional reasons for concern. In 2019, a New York judge ordered his nonprofit Trump Foundation to pay $2 million to an array of charities—and then to dissolve entirely—after finding Trump misused the foundation to further his political and business interests. In 2022, the Trump Organization and Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a suit brought by the DC attorney general charging that the committee illegally misused nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family by “grossly overpaying” Trump companies “for use of event space at the Trump Hotel for certain inaugural events.”