Many Americans may not be feeling Donald Trump’s economic “golden age” — but the president’s bank account is.
He earned billions of dollars last year in cryptocurrency holdings, royalty payments and property investments and healthy profits by selling Trump-branded Bibles, watches and sneakers, according to his latest annual financial disclosure, released Tuesday.
It was a fresh reminder that this is a presidency like none before it. Far from ostentatiously cutting himself off completely from his personal financial arrangements while in office, like all of his modern predecessors, Trump has created new ones — for instance, by issuing his own cryptocurrency tokens.
Although presidents and vice presidents are mostly not covered by existing ethics laws, they’ve tended to conduct their affairs as if they were, not least to avoid the political consequences of failing to do so.
But ever since Trump flouted custom by refusing to release his tax returns in his 2016 presidential campaign, he’s tended to ignore conventions surrounding his wealth and business — and appears largely to have escaped lasting political damage.
