Trump’s Foreign Bribery and Congress’s Failure to Act

I am writing to ask how you are comfortable defending — or remaining silent about — what appears to be outright bribery and corruption by President Trump while he is in office. According to reporting, just days before Trump’s inauguration, a member of the Emirati royal family, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, backed a $500 million investment into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company co-owned by the Trump family. Nearly $187 million of that money went directly to Trump-controlled entities. This was not a distant or incidental investor — Tahnoon is the UAE’s national security adviser, the brother of its president, and the chair of its $1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund. Ethics experts have called this “corruption, plain and simple,” and a “blatant, disgraceful conflict of interest” that may violate the Constitution’s Federal Emoluments Clause. Months later, the Trump administration overrode prior national security concerns and approved the export of 500,000 advanced Nvidia AI chips to the United Arab Emirates — a decision the previous administration had restricted due to fears the technology could end up in China. While no one has claimed an explicit quid pro quo, the structural conflict is undeniable: a foreign government with enormous leverage over U.S. policy invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the president’s family business, and then received a major policy concession from that same president. Americans are left to wonder whether U.S. foreign policy is being shaped in the public interest or sold to the highest bidder. The White House’s defense — that Trump handed his businesses to his children — is insulting. That is not a blind trust. That is not independence. That is a paper-thin workaround that ethics experts have condemned for years. Trump continues to meet personally with Sheikh Tahnoon, host him at the White House, and publicly celebrate the “friendship” between their governments while his family profits directly from Emirati money. This is exactly the kind of foreign influence and self-enrichment the Constitution was designed to prevent. Congress has the authority — and the obligation — to investigate this. Yet Republicans, who control both chambers, have chosen to do nothing. Why? Why is Congress willing to police teachers, librarians, and private citizens, but unwilling to investigate a president whose family accepted half a billion dollars from a foreign power tied directly to national security decisions? Do you believe this conduct is acceptable? Do you believe presidents should be allowed to profit personally from foreign governments while shaping U.S. policy toward them? And if not, why are you refusing to act? Silence in the face of corruption is not neutrality — it is complicity. I expect a clear answer on whether you support an investigation into this matter or whether you believe presidential corruption should simply be ignored when it involves Donald Trump.