Trump's Inaugural Committee Raised $107 Million. Then the Indictments Started.

Inaugural committees are not government entities. They are nonprofit organizations that raise private money to fund inauguration events. They are subject to federal campaign finance law, including a prohibition on foreign nationals donating. They are required to file disclosure reports. The Trump inaugural committee filed those reports — which is how investigators were able to document what happened to the money. The FBI began examining the committee in late 2018. The SDNY issued subpoenas for documents. What they found: millions flowing to Trump-owned properties, illegal foreign donations funneled through intermediaries, and a shadow network of foreign nationals seeking access to the incoming administration.

The Trump Hotel Payments.

The inaugural committee paid the Trump International Hotel in Washington — a property Trump continued to profit from after taking office — approximately $1.5 million for event space. A recording obtained by ProPublica captured Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a committee official, expressing concern that the hotel was overcharging: "The optics of it," she said on the recording, "is not going to be good." Internal committee communications showed that Trump's daughter Ivanka had been involved in discussions about the hotel's pricing, and that concerns were raised internally about the rates being charged. The hotel was paid what it charged. The money went to a Trump property. Since Trump owned the hotel and the committee paid the hotel, inauguration donors were effectively enriching Trump personally — the same emoluments problem that ran throughout the first term.

The Foreign Donation Scheme.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged multiple individuals with illegally funneling foreign money into the inaugural committee. Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist, pleaded guilty to making illegal foreign donations to the committee using funds from foreign investors, and to obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. Sam Patten, a political consultant, pleaded guilty to illegally funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch into an inaugural committee super PAC. Prosecutors also charged individuals connected to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with attempting to use the inaugural committee to gain influence with the incoming administration. The investigation documented that donors from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait had made donations to the committee — which federal law prohibits; foreign nationals cannot donate to US inaugural committees.

The Wolkoff Recordings.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who had been hired to coordinate the inaugural events, became a witness for federal prosecutors and later published Melania and Me — which included contemporaneous recordings of conversations about the inaugural committee's finances. Her recordings documented insiders explicitly worrying about where the money was going and how it would look. She was cut off from the Trump circle after the book came out, but her recordings were used in multiple proceedings.

The New York AG Settlement.

In 2022, the Trump inaugural committee agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General's office, which had found that the committee had violated nonprofit law by directing funds to Trump-related businesses and by failing to ensure donations were used for their stated charitable purpose. The settlement included a requirement that the committee adopt governance reforms. The inaugural committee did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.