Corruption has always been a defining trait of Donald Trump’s public life, but in his second presidency it has evolved into the central operating logic of his administration. What once appeared as opportunistic graft has transformed into a full-scale system of personalized power, transactional policymaking, and institutional sabotage that rivals the kleptocratic politics of the post-Soviet space. The scale and brazenness of this corruption marks an unprecedented chapter in American history, one in which self-enrichment is inseparable from an explicit effort to dismantle the rule-bound architecture of the United States government.

To understand the significance of Trump’s corruption, one must first recognize the purpose it serves. His financial schemes, nepotistic networks, and improvised power centers are not just about enriching himself or his family-although they certainly succeed at that. Rather, they are tools to undermine what he calls “the system,” a loose term for the professional bureaucracy, legal norms, and institutional checks that have long guided American governance. In dismantling these guardrails, Trump is adopting a model familiar to anyone who has studied post-Soviet kleptocracy: rule through personalized loyalty, informality, and a disdain for legality.

This trajectory was already visible during Trump’s first term. Scholars such as Janine R. Wedel noted that Trump and his circle saw no contradiction in using state authority for personal gain. Nepotism flourished, with senior White House positions handed to family members and unqualified loyalists. Pardons were treated as political favors. Government contractors with personal ties to the president prospered. But compared to the second Trump administration, that early period now looks almost quaint.

Today, Trump and his appointees are reconstructing the federal government in ways that make corruption not only easier, but essentially unpunishable. Agencies responsible for oversight have been hollowed out. Specialized units dedicated to fighting money laundering, foreign interference, and illicit finance have been gutted or abolished. And in place of accountable institutions, Trump has erected informal power centers staffed by loyalists whose primary qualification is allegiance, not expertise.

Among the most alarming examples is Trump’s venture into cryptocurrency. The Trump family’s meme coin, marketed under the banner of Trump’s political persona, has already generated enormous sums-reportedly as much as $1 billion. Yet its real significance lies not in its profitability but in what it enables: a global, unregulated channel through which anyone, anywhere, can effectively make payments to the president of the United States. In any functioning democracy, such a setup would be immediately recognized as a form of bribery; in Trump’s Washington, it is marketed as innovation.

This pattern is not unfamiliar to students of post-Soviet economic history. During the Russian transition of the 1990s, the privatization of state assets occurred without the safeguards, institutions, or legal oversight necessary to prevent theft on a massive scale. Public resources ended up in the hands of a small circle of oligarchs who then sought Western lawyers, consultants, and public relations firms to safeguard and legitimize their fortunes. The result was a fusion of Western financial permissiveness and post-Soviet kleptocracy, enabling billions in illicit wealth to travel through global markets with little scrutiny.

Trumpism represents the American iteration of this fusion. His style of governance borrows heavily from both worlds: the deregulation-first ideology of the Reagan-Thatcher era and the informal, loyalty-based political culture of late-Soviet and Putin-era Russia. Trump’s America is one in which formal rules are irrelevant unless they serve the leader’s interests, institutions are obstacles to be bypassed, and loyalty outweighs legality. That this model has crept into one of the world’s oldest democracies is a testament to how deeply globalized networks of corruption have become.

This convergence is visible in the creation of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an entity ostensibly designed to streamline the federal bureaucracy. In practice, DOGE operates more like a Soviet-style parallel power structure, staffed by individuals who were neither confirmed by Congress nor bound by formal oversight mechanisms. Elon Musk’s role in this operation-given authority to oversee and purge federal employees without legal authorization-demonstrates how completely Trump has embraced informal power. In authoritarian systems, the leader is the ultimate source of authority; legality is merely a rhetorical ornament.

Critics have compared DOGE to the Iran-Contra affair, when the Reagan administration secretly circumvented Congress to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But there is a crucial distinction: when Iran-Contra came to light, both political parties condemned the operation, and several key actors were held accountable. In today’s Washington, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has made serious efforts to restrain Trump’s extralegal power structures. The model is no longer rogue—it is becoming institutionalized.

This institutional shift is clearest in Trump’s reorientation of the Justice Department and the dismantling of anti-corruption units. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the department has dissolved the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, shut down the Task Force KleptoCapture, curtailed investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and eliminated enforcement units monitoring cryptocurrency and foreign agents. In effect, the administration has removed the mechanisms designed to protect the United States from the very behaviors now being practiced at the highest levels of government.

The consequences of these actions go far beyond domestic politics. For decades, Western financial systems have been used by corrupt actors from Russia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and other regions to launder money, influence politics, and secure foreign assets. Trump’s policies do not merely ignore this danger-they actively facilitate it. As oversight collapses, foreign oligarchs, intelligence services, and criminal networks gain unprecedented access to U.S. political actors and financial channels. In many ways, Trump’s America is becoming the very system it once claimed to fight.

Crypto is at the center of this spiral. The anonymity of digital transactions, combined with the lack of regulatory enforcement under Trump, makes cryptocurrency an ideal tool for circumventing anti-money laundering rules and enabling foreign influence. The skyrocketing value of Trump’s own coin raises profound questions about who exactly is buying-and why. Because so many exchanges are opaque, offshore, or linked to undisclosed owners, the possibility of foreign state actors purchasing influence through crypto is impossible to dismiss.

Ultimately, Trump’s corruption is not merely a symptom of personal greed. It is a political strategy with two parallel aims: to enrich the president and his circle, and to destroy the system that might otherwise restrain them. In his first term, Trump destabilized the United States and weakened international alliances. In his second, he is openly working to dismantle democratic institutions entirely. His approach-characterized by informality, opacity, and the fusion of public authority with private enrichment-would be instantly recognizable to Soviet leaders of the past.

The tragedy is not only that such a system has taken root in the United States, but that it has done so with the acquiescence of institutions once thought resilient. As Trump continues to substitute personal power for public accountability, the country faces a profound question: Can a democracy survive a leader who openly seeks to destroy its foundations?

The answer depends on whether the nation acknowledges-and confronts-the unprecedented corruption at the heart of Trump’s presidency.

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