Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight

My newest Citation Needed project made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver! It’s a work in progress, but you can see the new interactive version of my map of the Trump family’s crypto ventures at map.citationneeded.news.

John Oliver speaking on Last Week Tonight, gesturing to an overlay of my web of the Trump family’s crypto businesses. The subtitles say “keeping track of them have wound up making diagrams like this”.

The map contains hundreds of business entities and links to the Trump family (with more being added!), augmented with data from the president’s most recent financial filings to estimate how much money is flowing in. It will be queryable by other researchers and journalists.

Click any node or connection in the Trump crypto empire map to open its panel and view explanatory annotations and citations. Toggle the income overlay to see financial-disclosure figures from the most recent filings. Search for entities, or filter by category.

A screenshot of the map, with a side panel open showing Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Side panel contents: Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Intermediary Entity When Walter Shaub, then Director of the Office of Government Ethics, called on President Trump to divest from the Trump Organization during his first term, Trump instead transferred his operating businesses to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Many had urged him to use a blind trust. Critics argued the DJT Revocable Trust fell far short of that standard: Trump remained the sole beneficiary, his son controlled the assets, and Trump could revoke the arrangement at any time. Shaub later commented that the arrangement was “meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective” and that “setting up a trust to hold his operating businesses adds nothing to the equation. This is not a blind trust—it’s not even close.” Established 2014 Sources ↗ Stenglein, Christine, "OGE Director warns Trump’s business plan insufficient", The Brookings Institution, January 11, 2017 ↗ Craig, Susanne, and Eric Lipton, "Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire", The New York Times, February 3, 2017 ↗ Kravitz, Derek, and Al Shaw, "Trump Lawyer Confirms President Can Pull Money From His Businesses Whenever He Wants", ProPublica, April 4, 2017 ←controlled by Donald Trump Jr. According to a 2024 regulatory filing, Donald Trump Jr. "is the sole trustee and has sole voting and

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