Donald Trump is both the most corrupt and most incompetent politician in US history and arguably world history. He has enriched himself to the tune of BILLIONS just in the last year. He has pardoned people who have made large investments in his companies, which he is still running as president. He is suing the government to extract a large civil settlement over being prosecuted. The United States has caused a global economic and foreign policy crisis with the unfathomably bad decision to start a war with Iran. Large trades on prediction markets happened right before the war began. These are hugely important subjects you need to be informed about and ones I write about.

Because of the scope of these disasters, it’s nearly impossible to examine more run of the mill illegalities and corruption. Nearly every day, things happen which would be scandalous but simply can’t permeate the news cycle full of far larger scandals.

But those smaller transgressions are indicative of the situation we are currently in - Donald Trump’s administration is corrupt down to the smallest political appointee. It’s imperative that none of these people serve in government again once he is out of power.

So today instead of his crypto corruption, instead of the $500 billion increase in military funding he asked for, instead of his disastrous war, and instead of the Epstein files, we’re going to be talking about something quite smaller in scale.

Trademark law!

Donald Trump last year announced he was forming the “Board of Peace". “What does the Board of Peace do?" you may ask and the answer is simple - we have no idea.

The Board of Peace is vaguely related to the war in Gaza. The organization has a charter, but that charter says nothing at all about the Board’s purpose or activities other than the following passage.

The Board of Peace is an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict. The Board of Peace shall undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law and as may be approved in accordance with this Charter, including the development and dissemination of best practices capable of being applied by all nations and communities seeking peace.

So the Board of Peace will be doing… peace things and such.

You’ll never guess who is in charge of the Board of Peace. The charter names Donald Trump as chairman for life. He has nearly full control of the organization. Members will not select the next chair. That’s also up to Donald Trump. Members may join for a period of three years after which renewal will be at the discretion of Donald Trump unless they donate $1 BILLION dollars to the Board which will be controlled by Donald Trump. Decisions will be made by a simple majority vote - unless that vote is overridden by Donald Trump. The Board is controlled by an executive board, but that board is solely selected by Donald Trump. Conflicts among members will be settled by - Donald Trump.

Raise your hand if you see a pattern here.

The Board of Peace is an organization almost solely controlled by Donald Trump - with no method of removing him - which will solicit billions of dollars, controlled by Donald Trump. Their activities will include… their charter doesn’t speak to that.

In fact, we do not even know if the Board of Peace is a government entity or private group. Notably here, and this is now a common refrain, the president does not have the authority to enter treaties or form organizations unless authorized by Congress.

Enter John Squires, head of the USPTO, the American patent and trademark office.

Squires filed two applications for trademarks for the Board of Peace. Notably here, Squires is not part of the Board of Peace. The applications list the USPTO as owners of the trademarks. Before these two applications, the USPTO held a grand total of seven trademarks - all of which are directly related to the USPTO.

There is a $300 fee for trademark applications. Squires asked for that fee to be waived. And then the office Squires runs granted his request to not pay the fee.

The organization asking for dues of one billion dollars couldn’t scrounge together $300 for an application fee.

Take in mind here, the Board of Peace does not functionally exist yet. They couldn’t file for their own trademark because there isn’t actually a group to file that application.

There are multiple legal issues here with what Squires did.

The USPTO is listed as the owner of the trademark for the Board of Peace. They are not. Squires said in a Congressional hearing his office was acting as a caretaker for the Board of Peace at the request of Donald Trump. That… is not a thing. Not only is misrepresenting the owner of a trademark on the application illegal, but having a “caretaker” on the application is not allowed in any way.

The head of the USPTO applied for a trademark listing the USPTO as the trademark owner when it was not, and did so as a “caretaker” for the Board of Peace which he cannot do. Luckily, the person ultimately approving these illegal actions was himself.

This becomes even more of a problem when you ask what sort of organization the Board of Peace is.

If the Board of Peace is a public organization, the trademark application must be filed BY that organization. The USPTO has never filed a trademark application on behalf of another government organization - until now.

If the Board of Peace is a private organization, then why did the USPTO file a trademark application on its behalf, while waiving the waiver, when it has never once in history done this for any other private organization?

At a hearing last month, linked below, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) grilled Squires over these actions. He did not have good answers and repeatedly fell back on the excuse that the president had asked him to do this.

This is not of great consequence, but it’s an excellent example of the corruption that defines every organization Donald Trump has run in his entire life - a fairly low level administrator broke multiple laws and precedents because Donald Trump told him to. This was in service of protecting the trademark of an ill-defined group that at the moment appears to be nothing other than a slush fund by which other countries may make massive payments to one Donald Trump.

Our criminal president demands criminal actions from all who serve him, no matter how trivial the matter.