With the Trump Boys’ Latest Drone Venture, the Public Is Asking: Can These Guys Start a Business Without Committing Securities Fraud and Insider Trading?

Illustration by Caleb Chen/CREW | Photo of Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. by Gage Skidmore under Creative Commons license

Note from the author: Below you’ll find the conduct, laws, and precedent that show New York State has sufficient evidence to investigate Eric and Don Jr’s latest business venture for potential felonious conduct. After that you’ll find instructions that help make an investigation more probable, followed by free resources to become an even more effective activist.

Until this spring, Aureus Greenway Holdings operated golf courses near Orlando. This spring it announced it was becoming a maker of combat drones through a merger with a one-year-old company called Powerus, and its stock rose about fifty-five percent the day The Wall Street Journal reported it. The company’s own press release named the president’s two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as “notable investors.”

They’re not only investors in this deal; they’re on every side of it. Their names attract the other investors. The firm that sold the stock and collected a fee, Dominari Securities, belongs to a holding company the brothers partly own and advise. And one of the buyers in the nine-million-dollar sale was Unusual Machines, where Donald Trump Jr. holds shares and an advisory board seat; weeks later the merged company sent Unusual Machines an order worth more than five million dollars.

The value of it all depends on funding their family controls the distribution of via federal contracts. Powerus, the drone company, aims to win contracts from the Pentagon’s drone program, worth more than a billion dollars, in a market created by the administration’s ban on foreign-made drones and the president’s order to speed American production. Fun fact: in May, the Air Force agreed to buy Powerus drones.

So where does breaking the law factor into all of this? New York treats deceptive securities conduct as a crime. The lowest level, a civil or misdemeanor Martin Act violation, requires no proof that anyone meant to deceive, only a material misstatement or omission. The felony charges require an investigation discovering evidence of intent in a scheme to defraud. The evidence currently in the public record is more than enough to justify an investigation. That’s the standard this article aims to lay out, the standard that if anyone else besides Eric and Don Jr. did this, their conduct would result in an official investigation.

One issue that would regularly warrant investigation is the stock price movements related to their venture. When a stock rises fifty-five percent on an announcement and the people who arranged the deal are involved on every side, from funding to procurement to production to compliance to approval, investigators ask whether anyone bought or sold shares using information the public did not have. It would be very illegal if the Trump boys were participating in insider trading, and if Martha Stewart could be prosecuted for it, so can Eric and Don Jr.

Normally, regulators might already be examining a company engaged in these activities. Currently, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and PBS have reported the deal, and Senator Elizabeth Warren is officially questioning the Defense Secretary about this new drone deal, warning in a letter that the president’s children’s involvement “cast a cloud of corruption and conflict of interest” over any Pentagon contracts the company wins. Believe it or not, clouds of corruption and conflict of interest are illegal in New York State, where the NASDAQ is located, and in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.

Realistically, we should acknowledge the fact that federal enforcement via the DOJ, FBI, SEC and other agencies have been gutted and purged of non-loyalists over the last 18 months, making federal investigations unlikely. The good news is that New York State has sufficient legal justification to investigate this situation, and who knows what will fall out when we shake that corrupt family tree.

Look at the situation plainly: A company that operated golf courses in January now promises to sell combat drones to the Air Force, and the untested drone company is funded by the sons of the Commander in Chief.

It sure looks like corruption, and when you bring that corruption onto the New York Stock Exchange, you open yourself up to the New York State Attorney General and the Manhattan District Attorney, neither of which answers to any crime family they may be investigating.

Wouldn’t it be quite the outcome if we solved our political corruption problem by addressing our financial crime problem? That power is in New York’s hands.

Below you’ll find a script and instructions for action.

If you want this investigated, here is how you can help make that happen. Two officials can open an inquiry directly. The New York Attorney General takes reports of corporate wrongdoing at ag.ny.gov/file-complaint or by phone at 1-800-771-7755, and the Manhattan District Attorney, whose office has jurisdiction over the Trump Tower firm that handled the financing, takes public reports at 212-335-9000.

One official can order it investigated. Governor Kathy Hochul can direct the Attorney General to open an inquiry, and she takes messages from the public through the governor’s contact form and by phone at 518-474-8390.

You do not have to live in New York to do this. The financing was handled by a Trump Tower firm and the stock trades on a public exchange, so New York’s officials are the right ones to ask, and anyone in any state can ask them. Ask a friend to make the calls and the office hears from two people instead of one. Ask an Indivisible chapter to join and you become an influence multiplier that has powerful people being asked the same thing: isn’t this your job?

Here is a message you can send or read aloud. Fill in the bracketed parts and keep to what is documented.

“My name is [your name]. [If you live in New York, add: I am a New York resident.] I am asking your office to review the merger between Aureus Greenway Holdings and the drone company Powerus, and the stock sale handled by Dominari, a firm based in Trump Tower. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are named as investors in the deal. A firm they partly own and advise sold the stock and collected a fee, and a company tied to Donald Trump Jr. both bought into the sale and then received an order worth more than five million dollars from the merged company. The value of the deal depends on federal defense contracts the president controls. I want to know whether this arrangement was disclosed and handled lawfully under the Martin Act, and whether anyone connected to the deal bought or sold shares using information the public did not have. I am asking for a response. You can reach me at [your email or phone].”

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