Knowing that the Trump administration is at home with the way mobsters talk, it’s fair to say that DJT is getting ready to bag a big one. A big fish. A big Filet-o-Fish, in his favorite fast food terms. The word on the street is that former FBI director James Comey could be indicted in a Virginia federal court sometime over the next few days.
Comey is expected to be charged with lying to Congress in 2017 and again in 2020 when he said he had no knowledge of and did not authorize his deputy leaking word to The Wall Street Journal about the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails—rich irony indeed in Trump having a rival taken down for, well, taking down another rival.
Other heads that Trump wants to roll are Letitia James, the New York attorney general who won a landmark civil fraud case against Trump and his family businesses, and California Senator Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment effort against Trump.
“He has a massive chip on his shoulder. He believes he has been so badly treated by so many people that this is his just reward, that he is entitled to take advantage of his office,” said Matthew Dalek, a political historian at George Washington University, of Trump. “He’s turned the Oval Office into a cash machine… We’d be hard pressed to find another president to so brazenly use the power of the office to enrich himself and his allies and to punish his enemies.”
It’s shocking enough that President Trump’s Department of Justice has shut down an investigation into border czar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents—and Homan has not even really denied the accusations—on grounds he was a private citizen at the time.
But justice has gone awry when Trump installs a loyalist with no prosecutorial experience—as he did in Virginia this week with one of his favorite personal lawyers, Lindsay Halligan—to bring charges that any credible prosecutor would be embarrassed to put forward. (Beyond those we’ll likely see leveled against Comey soon enough, Trump says AG James is practicing “lawfare,” waging a partisan war against him to advance her career, and that she’s guilty of mortgage fraud. Ditto with Schiff on mortgage fraud.) Halliday’s predecessor, Eric Siebert, chosen by Trump, confirmed by the GOP-controlled senate and backed by Virginia’s two Democratic senators, had earlier bowed to pressure that he wasn’t carrying out Trump’s wishes and did the honorable thing.
Or did he? “He didn’t quit. I fired him!!” Trump posted on Truth Social, hurling more lightning bolts.
There’s no cover-up. The mad King does what he wants in openly weaponizing the DOJ and more broadly turning the White House into a cash cow for his family and friends. “He is the most successful grifter in the history of the United States, and (the Trump administration) floods the zone to make it hard for people to get a handle on any of the specifics,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of the non-partisan, non-profit organization Democracy 21. “We are in autocratic mode these days, but I continue to believe the American people don’t like corruption.”
But maybe they don’t really mind it after all? Except for a brief burst of outrage over Trump accepting a $400 million plane from the government of Qatar, voters seem to accept this is how it is with rich people.
“I think this is the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history,” Ann Coulter, right-wing royalty and author of In Trump We Trust, told the British podcast “Triggernometry” last month. “I mean, it is so blatant it’s right in front of our eyes… It’s corrupt in the sense that he’s using the presidency to rake in so much money.”
“And the funny thing about it,” she continued, “I don’t care as long as we get a wall—and mass deportations.”
We’re a long way from when Jimmy Carter’s younger brother tried to cash in on the presidency with his “Billy Beer!” It didn’t sell, not even as a souvenir, and Billy later confessed he drank Pabst. We’re further still from Tea Pot Dome, the scandal of a hundred years ago that tarred the Harding administration when Interior Secretary Albert Fall was convicted and imprisoned for accepting bribes to issue the rights to drill for oil on federal lands in Wyoming and California. Then there’s Watergate, where the coverup was worse than the crime.
But the self-dealing and cashing in and the smashing of norms and traditions that Trump is implementing in D.C. today make a mockery of an independent judiciary—and the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses.
The Supreme Court ruled that the cases brought against Trump for violating these anti-corruption clauses during his first term were moot once he left office. (The suits were brought by high-end restaurants and hotels in D.C. and New York finding fault with the president for his accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stayed at Trump hotels and patronize other businesses owned by him and his family.)
Still, Trump’s net worth fell by a third over his first four years, leaving him a billion dollars less rich. He complained about how much he sacrificed, saying it was “stupid” to listen to the people warning about ethics violations. And like just about everything in this second term, he’s doing what he wants and he’s getting away with it.
He was on to something when he said in January 2016 that, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” In the nine years since, as the mobsters might say, he’s made himself a made man.
The post Opinion: Trump Might Be Hiding His Cankles, But White House Corruption Is On Full Display appeared first on The Daily Beast.
