The 20th of January, 2017 was “the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

This, of course, according to Donald J. Trump — the “Drain the Swamp”-toting and so-called “political outsider” sworn into office as President that day.

In his inaugural address, President Trump railed against the “political establishment,” who, in his own words, had “protected itself, but not the citizens of our country” for far too long.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he said, promising a new era of populist, “America-first” reform.

President Trump’s entire address was centered around the idea that — with him in the White House, of course — the American people were poised to regain power.

“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

The incompetent and corrupt “Swamp” in Washington, D.C. would soon cease to exist.

The reality, however, could not be farther from the truth, as President Trump — beholden to the American elite from day 1 —  would rake in $20 million from his Inauguration Ball alone from the very same “Swamp” he lambasted on stage.

My intention in writing this (rather long) article is to contrast Trump’s anti-“Swamp” rhetoric in 2016 with President Trump’s actual record as President in 2017 as well as his ties to “the Swamp” in the past.

While this is obviously not an end-all-be-all study of corruption in the Trump era, I hope this piece will spark interest to investigate and expose such.

Candidate Trump and GOP Mega-Donors

A fitting way to begin this article is to talk about a story written by Kenneth P. Vogel and Ben Schreckinger of Politico that largely flew under the radar of the mainstream media. Nonetheless, it is a story essential to understanding who Donald Trump really is behind the veneer of anti-establishment rhetoric he ran upon.

Entitled “Trump courted mega donors he now scorns,” the Politico story detailed Trump’s pursuit of the “who’s who” of the “Swamp” — at least the Conservative side of such a swamp — long before he would go on to attack them in the Republican primary.

Then-candidate Donald Trump personally met, spoke with and pleaded for the funding and support of Charles and David Koch, the infamous “Koch brothers,” as well as casino mogul and leading pro-Israel voice Sheldon Adelson and hedge fund billionaire Paul “the Vulture” Singer — arguably the 3 most prolific and influential Republican mega-donors.

Beginning with Mr. Adelson, — who donated $77,900,000 to Conservatives in 2016 alone (and $0 to Democrats) — it is revealed that Trump visited him personally and put forth “a very clear ask for money” before his 2016 campaign.

Adelson, an “Ardent Zionist,” as Vogel and Schreckinger put it, is well known to be one of the leading — and most influential — pro-Israel voices in the US.

Trump, who swore on the campaign trail that he would not bend and flex for the elite which he said ventriloquized those on the Republican debate stage alongside him, “called Adelson to tout his pro-Israel bona fides, according to sources familiar with the call.”

Trump is also said to have pitched to Adelson that “he lives in heavily Jewish New York and that his daughter married a Jewish man, real estate developer Jared Kushner.”

In their pursuit of Adelson, the Trump team highlighted a 2013 campaign ad released by Trump which asked Israeli’s to reelect current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the poster-boy of the Israeli Right.

A source is quoted to have said “We had really tried to promote Trump as pro-Israel.”

“He’s always wanted Adelson money,” the source added.

A funny — and revealing — story noted by former Huffington Post journalist Christina Willkie (in her database of donations to Trump’s inaugural ball available on Google Docs) is that after Sean Spicer’s “Even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons” blunder, the then-White House Press Secretary personally called and apologized to Adelson.

When Trump had a meeting arranged between himself and Adelson in Las Vegas, Adelson declined the invitation.

It was only after Adelson threw his support behind Marco Rubio that Trump took a condescending view of Adelson, tweeting “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”

So much for Mr. “Drain the Swamp” not bowing to the elite.

Trump and Mr. Adelson’s relationship did not end upon his denial of support in 2016, as Adelson donated $5 million to the January 20 inauguration alongside the additional $21 million he donated to the Trump campaign.

While Trump took aim at “the Swamp” and the establishment during his inaugural address, Adelson — a man highly entrenched within such a swamp —  sat on stage nearby the President and clapped.

The Politico article then turns to the Koch brothers.

“Trump’s aides detailed his policy positions for the Kochs and their donors in a survey put together by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the group that coordinates the Koch network and hosts its twice-a-year donor gatherings.”

Bowing to Republican party orthodoxy, Trump — the so-called “outsider” — met with Charles and David Koch at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida during early April.

Once again, it was only after the Koch’s decided not to invite Mr. Trump to a meeting with other Republican hopefuls that he tweeted “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?”

The Trump White House now has deep ties to the Koch’s, a topic we will touch upon later.

Although more short-lived then his run-in with Adelson and the Koch’s, Mr. Trump did attempt to lure Paul Singer, the multi-million dollar hedge fund manager, into supporting his candidacy in 2016.

Mr. Trump had his son-in-law, and now top advisor, Jared Kushner call Mr. Singer to inform him that “Trump was laying the groundwork for a campaign” that he might want to support.

In a familiar pattern, it was only after Singer’s denial and endorsement of Marco Rubio that Trump blasted him and denied a need for his support, saying at a press conference that there’s a “lotta controversy with Mr. Singer” and that he “represents illegal immigration pouring into the country. And now he’s with Rubio.”

The reason I began with this story is to make this important point:

Donald Trump is not anti-corruption.

He is a hypocrite for attacking the Jeb Bush’s and Marco Rubio’s of the world (who are corrupt, yes) as he himself begged for money from the very same elite that they did.

Swamp-ee

President Trump, as he frequently — and correctly — acknowledged on the campaign trail, was once a high-profile and experienced political donor.

Analysis cited by NPR found that “Since 1989, donations in Donald Trump’s name have totaled around $1.4 million (adjusted for inflation) to national-level parties, candidates, and other committees.”

An interesting side note is that 50% of Trump’s political donations between 1987 and 2009 went to Democrats. It was only in 2010 that he began to fund Republicans.

How could a man with over $1 million invested within both parties suddenly have a desire to “Drain the Swamp?”

Hint: he never wanted to. He just wanted to run it himself and fill it with people he liked.

A repeated claim of candidate Trump’s — that he was “self funding” his campaign — was an utter falsehood. Analysis available on OpenSecrets.org shows that the Trump campaign received $7,954,425 from the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate industries.

Trump was a beneficiary of $4,510,113 from the Real Estate industry, $4,252,506 from “Miscellaneous Business” and $1,392,369 from “Miscellaneous Finance.”

Pretty swampy, I’d say.

Make Lobbying Great Again

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” then-candidate Trump said that he considered placing a ban on employing former lobbyists in a hypothetical Trump administration in the future to be a “pretty good idea.”

Fast forward to 2017, and the Trump White House is as pro-lobbyist as any administration in US history.

Lobbying has entered a golden age under President Trump.

A report by the Center for Respective Politics found that in the first 5 months of the Trump era, “Companies spent nearly $840 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2017 — the highest amount in five years, according to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics based on data from the Senate Office of Public Records.”

“Leading the pack was Big Pharma… which poured just shy of $80 million into lobbying efforts in the first quarter, an increase of $10 million or 14 percent over the same period last year. Next in line was the insurance sector, which spent $40.2 million, showing an increase of 3.6 percent — no doubt in an effort to sway any changes to the Affordable Care Act.”

And don’t forget “Big Oil,” of course, as “The oil and gas sector pumped $36 million into lobbying for an 11 percent increase over first quarter 2016,” under the administration with a former Exxon Mobil CEO (Rex Tillerson) as Secretary of State. “Chevron, in particular, increased its lobbying efforts by a whopping 77 percent to $3.3 million, compared to last year.”

While candidate Trump promised to be crack down harder on lobbying than his predecessor President Obama had, Trump has rolled back crucial Obama-era lobbying regulations.

Trump indeed has legislated what he called a “lobbyist ban” — but in reality it was much weaker than any Obama-era regulation on lobbying.

Trump’s “ban” lets former lobbyists work in the White House as long as their work is not to regulate an industry they specifically lobbied on behalf of for two years.

“Obama’s order from 2009, which Trump revoked, blocked people who were registered lobbyists in the preceding year from taking administration jobs.”

Another weakness within Trump’s legislation is that “Obama’s order also restricted all administration officials from contacting their former agencies for two years after they leave. Trump changed it back to one year for some 3,000 people — everyone except cabinet-level appointees.”

9 Trump administration officials are currently being lobbied by interests within the industry they previously lobbied on behalf of according to a recent story written by Josh Keefe of the International Business Times. Check out that story here.

Trump’s Kitchen Cabinet

Now that we have discussed the past, I want to dive into the Trump administration itself.

The Trump administration, namely those appointed directly by the President, substantially donated to his campaign.

The Centre for Respective Politics found that “Together, these political appointees, along with their immediate families, delivered $6,043,473 to Trump and his allied super PACs in the 2016 election cycle.”

And if your argument against this point is that these people are simply pro-Trump and not long-time members of the donor-class, just know that Trump’s appointees donated $26,856,520 to “Republican/conservative candidates” from 1986 to 2016.

Betsy DeVos — Trump’s Secretary of Education — for example, is a long-time member of the Republican elite, her family well respected as a high-brass Republican donor clan. She is also the sister of Blackwater mercenary Erik Prince who Trump has also sought for advice. Linda McMahon, wife of long-time Trump friend and WWE boss Vince McMahon, was appointed to lead the Small Business Administration.

This man has no problem with corruption — in fact, he revels in it.

It is objectively true to say that the Trump administration is loaded with many within “the Swamp” the President himself ran against (in rhetoric, of course).

Trump’s Corporate Transition Team

An article from The Intercept took a look at the corporate-staffed Trump transition team.

Those listed included “energy adviser Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist for Koch Industries and the Walt Disney Company; adviser Eric Ueland, a Senate Republican staffer who previously lobbied for Goldman Sachs; and Transition General Counsel William Palatucci, an attorney in New Jersey whose lobbying firm represents Aetna and Verizon. Rick Holt, Christine Ciccone, Rich Bagger, and Mike Ferguson are among the other corporate lobbyists helping to manage the transition effort.”

Upon the disintegration of the Trump transition team and the formation of the Trump White House, many who led the transition — not surprisingly — returned to a life of lobbying (despite Trump’s promises of a “lobbyist ban, as discussed earlier).

Many on the staff even worked for “Crooked” Hillary Clinton (gasp!) in the past.

For all his criticism of her on the campaign trail (most of it correct), President Trump had no problem accepting money from and hiring many people who previously worked for and supported the former Secretary of State.

For example, an attendee of Trump’s inauguration named Andy Khawaja, who donated $1 million to the pro-Clinton super PAC “Priorities USA,” also donated $1 million to the inauguration of President Trump.

PACman

As explained by Anna Mosalia in her piece for the Centre for Respective Politics entitled “Nonprofits backing Trump have deep, swampy ties,” Trump is no stranger to the ever-so-swampy super PACs.

A newly-founded pro-Trump super PAC called “Great America Alliance,” she reveals, is actually a 501(c)(4) founded in 2013 priorly known as the “American Dream Initiative.” Mosalia writes that “An IRS Exempt Organizations Division official confirmed that Great America Alliance was once known as the American Dream Initiative (ADI), a politically active nonprofit with a history of spending undisclosed “dark money” in politics under the guise of issue advocacy.”

The Open Secrets Blog produced a report on 24 NGOs that overspent the 50% spending limit between 2008 and 2013. American Dream Initiative, futurely Trump’s “Great America Alliance,” was one of the 24.

The story also revealed that although Trump shunned them on the campaign trail in 2016, the future President attended a fundraiser for a pro-Trump super PAC with close ties to many working within the campaign.

Goldman Sachs’ Golden Boy

In one of candidate Trump’s final campaign ads, he proclaimed that “Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you the American people,” as an image of Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, flashed by.

It would be less than a month before President Trump announced that Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, the former a notorious hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs investor, the latter the outgoing President of Goldman Sachs, would serve as Treasury Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser within the new administration, respectively.

Here’s a short list of the top-ranking Trump administration officials that formerly worked at Goldman Sachs.

Steve Bannon (fired) — former Goldman Sachs mergers and acquisitions banker, former top advisor to the President.

Gary Cohn — former President of Goldman Sachs, sitting director of the National Economic Council.

Steve Mnucin — banking partner of Goldman Sachs, current Treasury Secretary.

James Donovan — 25 year Goldman Sachs banking partner, deputy to Mr. Mnucin.

An important point about Mr. Trump’s Goldman appointees is that, specifically in relation to Mr. Cohn, these people have served in top-ranking positions within the company.

President Trump has also filled many low-key positions with former Goldman Sachs employees.

In a recent piece written by Lee Fang of the Intercept, it was revealed that SEC Chairman Jay Clayton — an attorney who advised Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis — brought in other banking executives to serve on Trump’s team regulating Wall Street.

Okay, I’m Wrapping it Up…

A Politico article written in February noted that “More than a third of the almost 200 people who have met with President-elect Donald Trump since his election last month, including those interviewing for administration jobs, gave large amounts of money to support his campaign and other Republicans this election cycle.”

” Together the 73 donors contributed $1.7 million to Trump and groups supporting him… and $57.3 million to the rest of the party, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.”

If that doesn’t scream conflict of interest then I don’t know what does.

As if this was not corrupt enough “Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.”

Does that sound like the work of a President hell-bent on draining “the Swamp?”

President Trump is — as candidate Trump was — beholden to the American elite.

He is owned and operated by “the Swamp.”