Senator Chris Murphy accused Trump of creating a “machine of continuous corruption”
More than a year ago, the American people made a tragic mistake by voting for Trump to become the 47th President of the United States. This is no longer just speculation, but fact. The Wall Street Journal published an investigative report revealing that President Trump is selling assets of US national security interest—chips for building artificial intelligence hardware systems—to the United Arab Emirates, receiving the proceeds for his family and splitting them with the family pockets of his friend, Vitkoff.
On Tuesday, February 3, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut delivered a speech on the Senate floor about the unprecedented corruption of the 47th President of the United States.
- Madam Speaker! Over the past year, President Trump has committed a simply astonishing number of actions aimed at enriching his family, exploiting public policy and the power of the White House, essentially trading American policy and US national security secrets in exchange for investments in himself, enriching himself through his presidency. I'm speaking from this podium today because this weekend, thanks to some good investigative journalism, we uncovered perhaps the most corrupt actions of this administration amid a staggering daily rash of corruption scandals. The Wall Street Journal reported this past weekend that four days before Donald Trump's inauguration, an investment firm closely tied to the United Arab Emirates secretly struck a deal with the Trump family to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial. This is the Trump family's new venture into cryptocurrency. They run this business jointly with the Witkoff family. The Witkoff family, of course, is headed by Steve Witkoff, who, not coincidentally, is the president's top adviser on the Middle East. The company that made this investment and received the 49% stake is owned by a man named Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the UAE. He is a security advisor to the UAE and also holds prominent positions in several major companies investing in the United Arab Emirates. One of the companies in which Tahnoon is involved is a firm called G42, which specializes in artificial intelligence. All of this is important for understanding the scale of what we uncovered last weekend. On behalf of G42, Tahnoon insisted that the United States sell our most advanced artificial intelligence chips to a UAE company. We have not sold this equipment to the UAE in the past. Both Republican and Democratic administrations, both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate, both Republican and Democratic members of the House of Representatives, have stated that we cannot sell this advanced AI equipment to the UAE due to the well-known integration of the UAE's national security services and this individual with China. Therefore, we never sold these chips to the UAE because we were absolutely certain, and there was bipartisan consensus, that these chips would immediately go to China. And China cannot, I emphasize, cannot gain control of this advanced AI equipment. It came as a shock to most national security experts, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, when, shortly after the president's inauguration, he, in defiance of his national security advisers, decided to sell these chips to the UAE, and in particular to this company owned by Sheikh Tahnoon. Let me emphasize the bipartisan nature of the opposition to this technology transfer to the UAE. In 2024, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-CA), a Republican, expressed concern and demanded an investigation into Microsoft's $1.5 billion investment in G42. And again, it was McCaul, a Republican, who appealed to the Biden administration to investigate: not the U.S. government's technology transfers, but Microsoft's investment in G42, citing the integration between the UAE and China.
As I've already noted, it was reported that the decision to sell these $1 billion chips was made over the objections of senior national security officials, including the National Security Council's senior technology director, who advocated for restricting access to these advanced chips. Yet Trump proceeded with the deal anyway, leaving everyone baffled. This is truly bad for America's national security. Everyone knows that if these chips fall into the hands of the UAE, they will most likely end up in the hands of the Chinese. But he's giving the go-ahead for the sale of these chips, worth $1 billion, and this weekend we'll learn the likely reason. Secretly, days before the administration's decision, this UAE company, led by a man who stands to profit from the chip sales, secretly invested $500 million in Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial.
Lest you be under any illusions, it should be noted that there is no division between Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and World Liberty Financial. World Liberty Financial is associated with a company called DT Marks DEFI LLC, and according to available information, Trump owns 70% of this company, with the remaining 30% allegedly divided among Trump's sons. Incidentally, DT Marks is not owned by Donald Trump's organizations or subsidiaries; it is owned directly by Donald Trump. Steve Witkoff stated that he was selling his stake to World Liberty Financial, but in his disclosure form filed last September, just a few months ago, he still held a stake—a financial interest—in this company. So, Steve Witkoff, a Middle East adviser, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, who holds direct ownership stakes in World Liberty Financial, receives a $500 million payment just days before his inauguration, a deal that involves paying $500 million for a 49% stake that is secret. We don't know all the details of this deal, but at least $187 million directly from this UAE company goes into the Trump family's pocket. $31 million directly from the UAE company goes into Witkoff's pocket. It's no coincidence that a secret deal is struck in which a foreign government secretly transfers money directly to the President of the United States, and then very soon we learn that the President is throwing out long-standing national security policy, ignoring the advice of his advisers, and is about to hand over national security secrets to the country that just gave him $187 million. Of course, this isn't the first time President Trump has done business with this man, as Sheikh Tahnoon runs a company called MGX. This company previously invested $2 billion in the president's business empire. It was done publicly, so we all saw it, but that doesn't make the deal any less corrupt, simply because it wasn't disclosed by journalists. In that deal, a UAE company decided to invest in Binance using Donald Trump's cryptocurrency. At the time, Donald Trump's cryptocurrency was a new product on the cryptocurrency market, lacking major backers, so who came to the rescue? Sheikh Tahnoon. He used another company to finance his $2 billion investment in Binance using Trump's cryptocurrency, which almost instantly made it one of the most successful and most traded cryptocurrencies in the industry. In that case, the investment was directly from the UAE into Donald Trump's company. It was funding a project on the Binance platform using Trump's cryptocurrency. But the fact that the corruption was somewhat veiled doesn't mean there wasn't any corruption in this case. This case involves a direct investment of half a billion dollars by a foreign government into a company controlled and managed by the President of the United States.
There's not a single instance in the history of the United States of a foreign government making a direct investment in a company owned by the President of the United States. It's not surprising that they did it secretly. It's not surprising that they tried to do it without anyone knowing. The UAE doesn't just hand out that kind of money; they demanded national security secrets in exchange. They demanded this cutting-edge microchip manufacturing technology.
This isn't just a coincidence. You don't have to be naive to understand it.
There's a connection between payments to Donald Trump, investments in his business, and the transfer of national security secrets.
I just don't want this to become the norm. I don't want us to gloss over the multi-million dollar corruption of the President of the United States, who profits from his position every day. I don't understand why our Republican colleagues are justifying this – the White House has become a continuous corruption machine.
Never before in the history of the country has a US president so openly, so brazenly, so consistently exploited the enormous power of the presidency for his own enrichment. Never before in the history of the country has anything been done in secret.
The President of the United States receives payments from foreign governments, pockets the money, and then provides those governments with national security services the United States has never provided before.
During the Biden administration, there were endless hearings. From this podium, there was constant talk about the Biden crime family. You guys were absolutely going crazy about it, even though not a single accusation was made that Biden provided any government benefits to anyone in exchange for personal gain. The most the Republicans could come up with was that the president's son, Hunter Biden, was appointed to the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was involved in Ukrainian politics. Do you know how many boards of directors Trump's children have been appointed to in the last 12 months? Do you know how many contracts, government contracts, were awarded to companies whose boards Trump's children miraculously joined when their father became president?
Yes, what Hunter Biden did was wrong, I said so back then. He shouldn't have been on that board. But there was not a single accusation that President Biden did anything for the company where his son served, or received a single dollar in exchange for his son's service on that board. Investigations, speeches, hundreds of hours on Fox News, and not a single accusation.
Trump enriches himself every day by exploiting his official position. Every day, foreign governments buy him something: luxury jets, investments in his company, lucrative deals, licenses to build his hotels... All this in exchange for favorable relations with the United States government. All this happens openly, in full view of everyone.
In this case, they understood that these actions were so egregious, so wrong, that they committed them secretly. Everything we're talking about is simply astounding: a secret payment of $187 million to the Trump family, a payment of at least $31 million to the family of Trump's top Middle East adviser, and then the transfer of national security secrets to the UAE, which every American president had refused to hand over before these two secret payments. This is corruption. These are elements of bribery. This is a potentially criminal act. The rule of law could be suspended today. Republicans might simply be unwilling to do anything about this corruption today, simply because the president belongs to their party. For now, Trump and his friends may be able to escape punishment for these crimes and this corruption, but the rule of law will return, and when that happens, everyone who profited from public service, trading public service for money and violating the laws of this country, will end up in prison.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
#NEW #622_51
