Trump wants his cut of the looting he enables.

Alina Habba is Trump’s former personal lawyer. Last year, while she was still advising the Justice Department, she took a job as general counsel for a company tied to a billionaire Venezuelan family. The head of that family had been charged with bribery and was looking for a pardon. Trump gave him one a few weeks after Habba started her new role. Habba says there was no conflict of interest. That she had nothing to do with the pardon. But they are paying her 10 million dollars a year for four years, plus bonuses. More than 50 million dollars guaranteed. For a general counsel job. There has been an update since we last talked about this. It turns out that when Trump found out, he erupted. Not because of how it looked. Because of how much she made. And he wanted his cut on the spoils. According to people briefed on his calls, he told aides and allies Habba should donate some of that money to his presidential library. Or at least to another Trump cause. And he said the family shouldn’t pay out the rest of her contract. When Senator Jon Ossoff was asked about the Habba story on MS Now, he put it perfectly. Trump tries to talk a big game about fraud. But he isn’t fooling anyone. Trump has been using the presidency to make money for himself and his family since day one. And everybody around Trump can line their pockets, too. All they have to do is make sure the boss gets his cut.