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Financial Disclosure: Trump Profits Billions as President

Financial Disclosure: Trump Profits Billions as President

Last updated on: July 1, 2026 at 9:44 pm by Kermit Zarley

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Financial Disclosure: Trump Profits Billions as President 2026-07-01T21:44:21-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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Trump Mugshot; CREDIT: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office of Georgia

A financial disclosure statement made public today revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump has profited over $2 billion from his investments in the stock market the past year. Government ethics experts and critics claim some of his investments represent a conflict of interest. For example, Trump profited somewhere between $1.2 and 1.4 billion on cryptocurrency last year while regulating that industry favorably. Trump defended this today by claiming everyone is profiting from stock market investments. But cryptocurrency is a risky investment, and he has exercised power to help it.

“Build a Wall” and “Drain the Swamp”

When Donald Trump first campaigned for the U.S. presidency, his two principal planks of his political platform were (1) to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration and (2) to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. The latter meant that there was considerable financial corruption among federal politicians and that Trump, if elected president, would “clean it up.”

When Trump was saying this about draining the swamp, it greatly aided his building a political base of voters that came to be called MAGA, meaning “Make America Great Again.” I questioned this thesis, that America was in decline. I believe that Donald Trump often sets up a straw man like this to knock it down, and that draws voters. When he does so, he never proves that the straw man exists. He just keeps telling people what he wants them to believe, and his philosophy is that if they hear it enough, they will believe it.

That’s what Trump told Billy Bush, the guy with Access Hollywood who was in that video when Trump said if you’re famous you can do whatever you want to any woman sexually, such as grab her by the genitals. It is appalling to me that in 2016, only six weeks after this video was shown on TV, America chose Donald Trump as its president. To me, that’s when America took a nosedive in decline.

Trump Often Violates Jesus’ Teaching on Judging

So often in Donald Trump’s business and political careers, he had publicly spoken ill of people who he perceived as opponents, or he just didn’t like them, thereby judging them when he himself was a hypocrite about it, being just as guilty of his accusation against them or more so. For, Jesus taught at the beginning of his public ministry, recorded in his Sermon on the Mount, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (Matthew 7.1 NRSV).

Many people stop reading right there and conclude that anyone who judges another person violates what Jesus teaches here. If that was true, then all of God’s prophets were often guilty of this sin since their divine calling was sometimes to judge others. So, people who think Jesus condemned all judging greatly misunderstand him by taking that first sentence out of its context, thus not reading the rest of what Jesus said.

Jesus continued, “For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7.2-5). Of course, Jesus was using hyperbole for emphasis and to greatly aid memory.

An Excerpt from My Book about Trump

In reality, Donald Trump is a con man, the biggest liar I have seen in my lifetime. It was Trump himself who was the swamp, having a history as a businessman with shady ethics, typical of a guy who owned gambling casinos as he did. I address this in the introduction of my book, Bible Predicts Trump Fall.

Donald Trump got his questionable business ethics and penchant for suing largely from New York City lawyer Roy Cohn, who worked for the Mafia. Here is an excerpt about it from my book, without the footnote references:

“Roy Cohn met Donald Trump in 1971 at the members-only nightclub Le Club. Donald was 24 years old. (Roy Cohn was a regular at Studio.) Donald immediately told him, ‘The government has just filed suit against our company [Trump Organization], saying that we discriminated against blacks. . . . What do you think I should do?’

“Cohn said, ‘Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated.’ For that, Cohn became the Trumps’ lawyer and Donald’s tutor for the next thirteen years. Roy taught Donald to fight City Hall through the courts to get whatever he wanted as a real estate developer. Cohn instilled in young Donald a tenacious spirit to never give up, never regret, and never admit defeat.

“Donald Trump got his penchant for threatening people with lawsuits from Roy Cohn. New York City lawyer Victor A. Kovner said of Roy Cohn, ‘You knew when you were in Cohn’s presence you were in the presence of pure evil.’ Columnist Liz Smith said, ‘Donald lost his moral compass when he made an alliance with Roy Cohn.’ Mary L. Trump says Cohn had a ‘vicious temperament . . . was subject to no rules’ and became ‘very rich, very successful, and very powerful.’

“During the 1980s, Roy Cohn became a criminal defense lawyer for several New York Mafia figures, such as John Gotti of the Gambino family. Cohn socialized in elite circles, even among politicians. In 1986, New York State disbarred Roy Cohn for unethical legal practices. He was indicted four times, though he always got acquitted. Cohn was a lifetime bachelor and allegedly a homosexual who contracted AIDS, though he denied both. After Cohn’s decease, Donald made famous around New York City the saying, ‘Where’s my Roy Cohn?’ Donald Trump always needed good lawyers.”

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