Inauguration 2025: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

With Trump, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Lost among all of Trump's other outrageous and often criminal behavior is the fact that there’s no accounting of millions of dollars donated to his 2017 inauguration fund. Trump’s inauguration in 2017 was a relatively modest affair compared with that of his predecessor. Barack Obama’s inauguration fund raised in the vicinity of $50 million, and it was lavish. Trump’s inauguration fund broke all records in 2017, raising $107 million, but the inaugural events themselves, modest in comparison with Obama’s, did not appear to reflect that amount of spending.

While laws around campaign financing are somewhat restrictive, contributions to a candidate’s Inaugural Committee have no limits as to the amounts donors can give:

“Foreign nationals are prohibited from making and inaugural committees are prohibited from knowingly accepting donations from foreign nationals.

While donations to an inaugural committee are not subject to any contribution amount limitations, corporations and labor organiz…