The Weekly | Trump’s Inauguration: The Money Behind the Most Expensive Presidential Debut in U.S. History

Episode 5: ‘Inauguration, Inc.’

Producer/Director John Pappas

Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration was the most expensive in the country’s history, with $107 million raised for black-tie parties and bespoke gifts. That’s more than double the previous record set by Barack Obama. Where did the money come from? Where did it all go? And why should we care now?

Some of the biggest controversies dogging the Trump administration — foreign influence, money, conflicts of interest — have their origins in inauguration weekend. As federal investigators look into the inaugural committee’s fund-raising, our reporters comb through the guest lists and add up the receipts.

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• How did Trump’s inaugural committee spend $107 million? There was $10,000 for cosmetics for 20 aides, $30,000 in per diem payments to dozens of staff members and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of party decorations. The Times’s reporting shows that the committee spent heavily on even the smallest details of the inauguration.

• Not everyone got what they thought they were paying for: Pavel Fuks, a Ukrainian-Russian developer, filed a lawsuit saying he was bilked out of the $200,000 he paid for what he thought would be V.I.P. tickets to the inauguration. He said in the lawsuit that he had paid the money to a firm at the direction of Yuri Vanetik, a prominent Republican fund-raiser and sometime lobbyist. Fuks, who spoke with Ken for this episode of “The Weekly,” once talked to Trump about doing a Moscow real estate project.

• As our reporters have been looking into the Trump team’s activities, federal and state authorities have also been investigating the inaugural committee’s fund-raising. Read the full coverage here.

Director of Photography Andreas Burgess
Video Editor Marlon Singleton
Senior Story Editors Dan Barry, Liz O. Baylen, Liz Day
Associate Producer Brennan Cusack