Trump's Latest Money-Making Moves Are Raising Alarms Among Ethics Watchdogs

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump released meme coins just days before he took the oath of office. A splashy pre-inaugural party was held at a property his company owns. And a Saudi-backed golf tournament is headed to a Trump club this spring.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are cashing in on his presidency again.

Just days before he took the oath of office, the Trumps each announced their own cryptocurrency, and a splashy pre-inaugural party was held at a property his company owns. And a Saudi-backed golf tournament is headed to a Trump club this spring.

Trump’s latest money-making moves are raising alarms among ethics watchdogs who say that, just days into his presidency, the Republican appears poised to benefit financially from his final term in office in new and lucrative ways.

During his first four years in office, Trump’s team paid “lip service” to ethics guardrails, said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the liberal group Public Citizen, which this week sued the Trump administration over a separate issue – claiming that Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is operating in violation of a federal transparency law that governs advisory panels.

“This time, it feels like the gloves are off, and they have no intention of comporting themselves with the decorum and ethical standards of other administrations,” Gilbert said. “They truly mean to make as much as they can on the backs of the American taxpayer.”

Asked this week by a reporter whether he intended to keep selling products, such as the meme coin, that benefit him personally, Trump said: “I don’t know if it benefited.”

The president said he wasn’t aware of exactly how much he had made from the new cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, despite the coin’s value soaring to billions of dollars, according to CoinMarketCap.

“I don’t know much about it, other than I launched it,” he said. “I heard it was very successful.”

New businesses, new potential conflicts

Eight years ago, as he prepared to enter office for the first time, Trump pledged to address his financial conflicts with great fanfare – appearing at a news conference with lawyer Sheri Dillon alongside piles of documents that Trump said illustrated his extensive labors to turn over the Trump Organization to his sons.

Ethics watchdogs panned Trump’s moves at the time as inadequate to address self-dealing because he chose not to divest his interests in his branding and real-estate empire or place it in a trust managed by an independent trustee.

The ethics plan this time around mirrors the commitments Trump made during his first term with one significant difference: His son, Eric Trump – who oversees the Trump Organization day-to-day – has said the company will continue to pursue deals with overseas interests, bypassing a self-imposed restriction made in the first term.

The younger Trump has said the firm would not pursue new agreements with foreign governments and under the plan released this month, the Trump Organization pledged to track any profits it makes from foreign government entities and donate it to the US Treasury.

Some deals involving foreign government resources will continue. In April, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league is scheduled to host a tournament at the Trump family’s Doral resort. The league is backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. This marks the fourth year the event will be held at the Trump property, but it will be the first to take place with Donald Trump in the White House.

The Trump Organization’s second-term ethics plan also is silent on whether Trump would attempt to launch new businesses while in office. Trump announced his meme coin on January 17 as he prepared to enter office. His wife’s $MELANIA cryptocurrency was announced the day before his January 20 inauguration.

Trump Organization officials did not respond to inquiries from CNN.

“Trump is taking on new conflicts in real time,” said Norm Eisen, a former ethics lawyer in the Obama White House and a prominent Trump critic. “It’s a recipe for an ethics disaster,” particularly given Trump’s power to decide how the federal government will regulate cryptocurrency.

Eisen warned that Trump’s business activity risks violating the foreign Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution, which bars anyone holding federal office from accepting “any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state” without congressional approval.

“Any foreign government that wants to influence Donald Trump can just buy his meme coin in large quantities and let him know that they did,” he said.

The emoluments question was litigated but not resolved during Trump’s first term. In