Scandal: A series examining corruption in leadership and its downstream consequences.
President Donald Trump disclosed buying up to $5 million in stock in Axon Enterprise, the company best known for Tasers and police body-camera systems, two weeks before Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a notice seeking a five-year Taser contract valued at about $220 million.
The timing does not prove wrongdoing. CNBC reported that it found no evidence Trump was involved in the procurement process, knew about it in advance, or that Axon knew he had bought the stock. The White House said Trump’s assets are held in a trust managed by his children and that independent third-party firms manage his investments.
But the sequence raises a public-integrity question: a president with a newly disclosed financial interest in a law-enforcement technology company led an administration expanding immigration enforcement when one of its agencies sought a major purchase of products closely associated with that company.
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