Trump Loaded Up on ABT Stock Before His DOJ Dropped Criminal Probe [View all]

The New Octopus -- The Nightmare by Mark Bryan.



Trump Loaded Up on Abbott Laboratories Stock Before His DOJ Dropped Criminal Probe

Abbott, which donated $500,000 to the president’s inaugural fund, faced an investigation stemming from alleged deadly contamination at one of its baby formula plants in Michigan.

by Jake Johnson
Common Dreams, July 02, 2026

US President Donald Trump last year purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of Abbott Laboratories stock before his Justice Department dropped a years-long criminal investigation into the company, which was accused of misconduct after infant hospitalizations and deaths were linked to one of its baby formula factories.

The stock purchases were revealed in the president’s annual financial disclosure report, which spans 927 pages and shows thousands of trades valued at over $1 billion. Trump’s first purchase of Abbott stock last year was made in late September, and the president bought around $500,000 worth of shares in total in 2025, according to the nonprofit media organization More Perfect Union.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that “top decision makers” at the Department of Justice shut down the criminal investigation into Abbott—which donated $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund—even though “some prosecutors believed they had evidence to criminally charge the company under a law they have used to pursue other businesses for allegedly selling contaminated foods.”

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The Food and Drug Administration received reports of at least nine infant deaths linked to baby formula produced at Abbott’s Sturgis plant, which the company temporarily shut down amid fears of dangerous contamination. The Justice Department launched its investigation into Abbott, the largest infant formula manufacturer in the US, in 2023, under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-abbott-laboratories

Traitor may be a stupid turd, but he sure knows how to transform "public service" into a self-service all you can grift smorgasbord of crime.