President Trump's gold-tinted dinner Wednesday for wealthy sponsors of his planned White House ballroom served yet another example of how corporate America has curried favor for access to his administration, ethics experts told Axios.

The big picture: That pay-for-play relationship between Trump and business leaders under his second White House stay, critics argue, oversteps norms of presidential behavior. • Don Fox, former acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told Axios events like this dinner have a "potential coercive effect on people to donate," noting, "one of the president's favorite words is retribution."

Driving the news: Representatives from Google, Amazon, Palantir Technologies, Lockheed Martin and more — many with lucrative contracts or pending business w

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