Casey Michel

Trump Opens the White House Doors to Foreign Regimes and Their Dirty Money Lobbyists for foreign countries have long helped other governments influence US policy, but nothing compares to the brazen corruption of the second administration of Trump.

Decades ago, a man named Ivy Lee jump-started the foreign lobbying industry, whitewashing the Nazis, Soviets, and Mussolini.

Nearly a century later, the industry is unlike anything we've ever seen—all of it thanks to the White House.

My latest at @thenation.com:

www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Where Mideast Envoy Pitched Peace, His Son Pitched Investors

Every week brings a new international corruption scandal that would have defined any other presidency, but which is totally normalized under Trump.

And foreign dictatorships just keep taking advantage.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/b...

HRF statement on Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival

Insane to me that so many of these already-wealthy American comedians would willingly take even more money from Saudi Arabian tyrants.

Talk about something that's going to haunt them the rest of their careers.

hrf.org/latest/hrf-s...

The Kushner-Blair Gaza plan is a moral atrocity – and a policy catastrophe | Josh Paul Jared Kushner and Tony Blair’s neocolonial venture would be an incompatible transplant that would be rejected by the body

Kushner "sees only what Israel is creating with American weapons: a flattened ruin on a prime piece of coastland – a beachfront parking lot ready for redevelopment." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Putin has somehow managed to even begin killing off Russia's oil industry. “It’s essentially a long, slow goodbye for Russian oil.”

Just one strategic nightmare after another for Russia—all thanks to Putin.

www.wsj.com/world/russia...

Why Ukraine is winning the war Russia has failed to achieve its core aim — the destruction of the Ukrainian nation

"At the rate they have been going in 2025, it would theoretically take the Russians around 100 years and tens of millions of casualties to conquer the rest of Ukraine. In fact, in August 2025, Russia controlled *less* of Ukraine’s territory than it did in August 2022."

www.ft.com/content/2a4d...

Incredible that in 3.5 years, with hundreds of thousands of Russians dead, Putin *still* hasn't managed to conquer even the Donbas.

Just a spectacular, historic failure.

New York mayor Eric Adams abandons re-election bid Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo will now face off in city’s November poll

This is phenomenal news not only for New York, but for Americans worried about foreign regimes sinking their teeth into American politics.

www.ft.com/content/50bd...

Really in shocking just how little work Western scholars have done on Sakha. Massive landmass, clearly non-Russian, obvious history as a separate nation, substantial natural resource wealth—and renewed agitation for autonomy.

Wild how little scholarly work has been done on it.

The settlers' man in Washington How Yossi Dagan is pushing US lawmakers to support Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Israeli settlers have an influential lobbyist working in Washington to push the Trump administration to okay annexation of the West Bank. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Still can't believe this is real.

Completely gutting all the momentum toward clamping down on these citizenship-for-sale schemes.

This new Trump visa scheme has multiple tiers: "Trump Gold Card," "Trump Platinum Card," etc.

For anyone with at least $1 million, American residency can be now officially be bought.

trumpcard.gov

Trump Gold Card Available now.

There's now an official U.S. governmental website hawking the "Trump gold card" visa scheme—selling American residency to any kleptocrat, cartel head, or oligarch who can afford it.

trumpcard.gov

The Democrats' Path Forward: Become the Anti-Corruption Party But to reform the system they first need to reform the Democratic Party.

"The way out isn't about left versus right; it's about clean versus corrupt, reform versus a rigged system, the people versus oligarchs." data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-democr...

The Anticorruption Angle Democrats should build a foreign policy around fighting graft.

Democrats should build their future policy platform against one clear idea: anti-corruption.

And this should go not just for domestic policy, but for foreign policy as well.

Writing on the topic with Trevor Sutton and Matt Duss for @foreignaffairs.com:

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Opinion | Eric Adams, Donald Trump and the Case That Broke American Justice

If you want to understand this Trump administration's rampant corruption ... you have to go back to Eric Adams, and how they made the case against him disappear.

I got a bunch of new details on this deep dive for @nytimes.com ...

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

The Anticorruption Angle Democrats should build a foreign policy around fighting graft.

Yes! www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

It was an honor to speak at @foxrothschild.bsky.social's annual White-Collar Symposium this week, focused on everything from foreign lobbying and offshore networks to modern kleptocracy and democratic decline. A conference that couldn't be timelier.

From crypto billions to computer chips, Trump is selling out U.S. security Casey Michel writes that a UAE crypto and chip deal shows Trump using the presidency for profit and putting America in danger.

Trump sells out to the UAE, and the USA pays the price | Opinion www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outl...

Corporate money in American politics is a national security threat.

An administration taking open bribes from foreign regimes is a national security threat.

Returning the U.S. into a global offshore haven is a national security threat.

It's not just about the money. It's about national security.

Nope. This is where Congress would have to step in, forcing Trump to enforce the law that they passed (with bipartisan support!) a few years ago. Total abrogation of congressional duty.

The Trump administration is now destroying all of the U.S.'s shell company information, making the country once again the greatest offshore haven in the world.

subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

From crypto billions to computer chips, Trump is selling out U.S. security Casey Michel writes that a UAE crypto and chip deal shows Trump using the presidency for profit and putting America in danger.

Related: www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outl...

From crypto billions to computer chips, Trump is selling out U.S. security Casey Michel writes that a UAE crypto and chip deal shows Trump using the presidency for profit and putting America in danger.

The latest bombshell corruption scandal linking Trump and a foreign dictatorship isn't just about the money—it's about how this is all weakening American national security.

My latest for @houstonchronicle.com: www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outl...

Jared Kushner Is Now A Billionaire Thanks to some good investments, new funding from his Middle Eastern backers and higher home values in south Florida, Ivanka Trump’s husband has joined his brother and his father-in-law in the three-c...

It's official: Jared Kushner—making millions from dictatorship after dictatorship, making money from Israeli expansionism, making foreign money as a direct result of who his father-in-law is—is now a billionaire.

www.forbes.com/sites/monica...

America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This Trump’s Qatari jet was just the beginning.

America has never, ever seen corruption like this. Certainly not involving foreign dictatorships. And certainly not with the president personally profiting this much along the way.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Anatomy of Two Giant Deals: The U.A.E. Got Chips. The Trump Team Got Crypto Riches.

Selling American interests to the highest foreign bidders, over and over and over again.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

Anatomy of Two Giant Deals: The U.A.E. Got Chips. The Trump Team Got Crypto Riches.

U.S. foreign policy is much easier to understand once you accept that the main "grand strategy" of the Trump administration is straight-up kleptocracy.

Wild myopia from those folks!

Russia Is Losing the War—Just Not to Ukraine A war meant to catalyze national revival has instead become a case study in national self-harm.

The war in Ukraine remains a complete strategic nightmare for Russia, all of Putin's own making.

www.theatlantic.com/internationa...