U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes the bride and groom during the wedding of Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff, and Erin Elmore, the director of Art in Embassies at the U.S. Department of State, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., February 1, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Buried underneath this weekend's revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files is a scandal so large that it would consume President Donald Trump's administration if Republicans weren't actively working to shield the president from accountability, according to analysts.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday morning that a lieutenant to a member of the United Arab Emirates' royal family secretly invested $500 million in Trump's "fledgling" World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency company. The investment occurred after the Trump administration approved the sale of artificial intelligence chips to the country, which had previously been denied due to national security concerns.
"The deal marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company," the report reads.
Following the report's publication, political analysts and observers thrashed Republicans in Congress for helping Trump cover up his misdeeds.
"In any other time or presidency, this story. reported by @WSJ, would be an earthquake of a scandal," Davis Axlerod, CNN's chief political analyst, posted on X. "The size, scope and implications of it are unprecedented and mind-boggling. But will this Congress, which brayed endlessly about the "Biden crime family," probe it? Not a chance.
"In part because the House Oversight chair is running for Kentucky governor in 2027, would never do anything to touch Trump and hurt his chances in [the] primary," Jonathan Miller, Politico's senior political columnist, posted on X.
"Freedom Bribes," author John Fugelslang posted on X.
"In ANY other circumstance, this would be a gigantic potential scandal, worthy of immediate congressional hearings," author Bill Carter posted on X. "Quid pro quo implications are massive. Will it even spur serious investigation? Certainly not by Trump-owned DOJ."
"He’s a fire hose of impeachable and criminal offenses," former journalist Jorge Gonzalez posted on X. "The country is numb to it. His secret has always been to overwhelm the public with insanity."