Trump is cashing in on the presidency like no president ever has

Never in 250 years has America witnessed a sitting president shield himself and his family from tax scrutiny, after leveraging policies that benefit his own businesses and personal portfolios, as Donald J. Trump has done. Why it matters: This isn't a hidden scandal. Trump has done this publicly and proudly . Last year, we called it the "most unprecedented presidency in 250 years." In doing so, he has set a precedent — once so unfathomable as to be laughable — that it's OK for presidents and family members to make billions off deals affected by government decisions, then use the Justice Department to secure lifetime protection from scrutiny of their past tax returns. Trump's crypto venture alone has been a windfall unlike anything in the history of presidential business, generating more cash for the Trump family in 16 months than the entire Trump real estate empire produced from 2010 through 2017, according to The Wall Street Journal . "I let my kids ... do business," Trump said in a January interview with The New York Times. "I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it." We were debating how to capture just how unprecedented Trump's actions are, when every week of every year seems filled with unprecedented words and actions. Let's try this. Imagine America put these questions to a public referendum: Presidents and their family members, unlike other U.S. citizens, shall be granted lifetime immunity from federal audits and criminal investigations of their past tax returns. Presidents and their family members can maintain active ownership of global business empires , profiting when government decisions directly benefit those specific businesses . Presidents, while in office, can maintain massive personal crypto and stock portfolios that buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars in industries directly regulated by their own administration. How would you vote? It's hard t...

Original source: Axios