Regarding the Trump family kleptocracy: An American kleptocracy story

Don Jr might not fully control the company, but he doesn't need to. He only needs to use his connections with his father to make money via corruption. If memory serves, this is exactly what sent MAGA Republicans into a hair-on-fire frenzy over all the corruption and millions or billions of dollars that Hunter Biden allegedly made by leveraging his family relationship with his father. 

To show their honesty, recent past presidents have:

• Established qualified blind trusts (like Reagan, Carter, Bush, Clinton)—Trump refused​
• Divested from businesses—Trump refused​
• Released tax returns—Trump refused (breaking 40+ years of precedent)​
• Donated foreign profits in full—Trump donated 3% of what he received​
• Maintained ethics oversight—Trump fired the federal government's ethics director​
• Avoided policy decisions benefiting personal interests—Trump's executive orders directly benefit his family's businesses​
• Prevented family members from profiting—Trump Jr.'s net worth increased 10x to $500 million

Evidence that the Trump family is kleptocratic include all of that. None of those anti-corruption measures exist in the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration exhibits every definitional element of a kleptocracy. Trump uses his powers to shape procurement policy that benefit family investments​. The Trump family has accumulated at least ~$1.8 billion through their proximity to power​. Trump removed federal accountability mechanisms that kept corruption in check.​ Foreign governments openly pay Trump businesses businesses for access to Trump power.​ Trump policy on cryptocurrency (and this) and drone procurement feeds family profits.

So, we are still waiting to see those tax returns that Trump promised in 2016-2107 he would release as soon as the IRS finished its audits. 

Golly, it sure takes the IRS a long time to do an audit. /s

Q: Since the GOP supports Trump and refuses to look into Trump's corruption and his corrupt family, does that also make the Republican Party kleptocratic?[1]

Footnote:

1. Solid evidence points to GOP complicity in Trump and Trump family corruption. The GOP operates at multiple levels to enable and protect the corruption. The GOP engages in behavior that protects and supports institutional capture, and normalizes and legalizes corruption. Congressional Republicans have systematically blocked investigations into Trump family corruption. Senate Republicans have repeatedly blocked Democratic attempts to enforce constitutional emoluments provisions. The Republican-controlled Congress transformed oversight from a check on executive power into protection of the president.

The Republican Party has fundamentally changed under Trump. Political scientists document that the GOP has abandoned core conservative principles—free trade, limited government, fiscal restraint, American global leadership—in favor of Trump's personal agenda. A CNN-SSRS poll in January 2025 found that 53% of Republicans viewed loyalty to Trump as central to their political identity and "very important to what being a Republican is," exceeding support for traditionally core Republican values like "a less powerful federal government" (46%).

Republicans don't just fail to investigate Trump; they actively obstruct investigations. They fired ethics officials and defunded oversight mechanisms. All of that enriches Trump and his family at public expense. That is the core definition of kleptocracy.

Under trump, the GOP has changed from a political organization with policy preferences into what experts call a "loyalty cult". The Republican Party protects Trump's corruption not despite recognizing it but because protecting corruption is now central to maintaining power in the new party structure. Members who refuse, like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, are expelled.