1. United States
2. Alaska
3. Letter

At the University of Alaska Anchorage, where I serve as a public employee, we hold ourselves to a strict standard of transparency and ethics. If our Chancellor or a member of the Board of Regents—or their immediate family—receives a gift worth more than $150, it must be reported within 30 days if it could reasonably be seen as intended to influence their official actions. I’ve seen Chancellors I’ve worked with take that responsibility very seriously. I find it difficult to reconcile how, on a national level, much larger-scale benefits from foreign sources and business interests have been tolerated with seemingly little accountability. According to a comprehensive analysis by The New Yorker, the Trump family has made an estimated $3.4 billion during Donald Trump’s two presidencies. This includes revenue from real estate, cryptocurrency ventures (estimated at $2.37 billion), licensing deals, legal fees, merchandise sales, and other operations tied to the Trump Organization and its subsidiaries—most managed by his adult children. Some of the most troubling examples include: • Retaining ownership of his global business empire instead of fully divesting, allowing foreign profits to continue flowing. • Receiving over $5.5 million from China, including payments from Chinese government–owned companies leasing space in Trump-owned properties. • Accepting millions of dollars in bookings and spending at Trump hotels and resorts by officials from Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. • Hosting foreign officials from more than 150 countries at Trump properties while he was in office. • Launching the cryptocurrency memecoin $TRUMP, which raised serious ethical questions about foreign influence and personal enrichment tied to his public role. The Foreign Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution was written precisely to prevent even the appearance that foreign governments could influence American leaders through payments, gifts, or business interests. If state employees in Alaska must report a $151 gift to avoid the appearance of undue influence, shouldn’t our highest federal officeholders be held to at least the same ethical standard? I urge you and your colleagues in Congress to renew serious bipartisan attention to presidential ethics and foreign entanglements. Accountability is not a partisan issue—it’s essential to the integrity of our democracy. Thank you for your service and for taking this issue seriously.