In Front of Our Noses: Open Corruption
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
For previous entries, click here.
First, via the NYT: Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex.
“Trump says it’s separate — the presidency and his business,” Mr. Truong said. “But he has the power to do whatever he wants.”
This $1.5 billion golf complex outside the capital, Hanoi, as well as plans for a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City, are the Trump family’s first projects in Vietnam — part of a global moneymaking enterprise that no family of a sitting American president has ever attempted on this scale. And as that blitz makes the Trumps richer, it is distorting how countries interact with the United States.
Second, also via the NYT: As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests.
When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.
Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.
It’s been a while since I have given much thought to the cattle futures bit that Rush Limbaugh used to love to go on and on and on about. It does seem kind of quaint in the Trump era.
More from the piece:
Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.
[…]
Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.
The president’s sons scoff at the idea that they should limit their business activities, which directly benefit their father. Donald Trump Jr. has said that the family restrained itself during his father’s first term only to be criticized anyway, so it made no sense to hold back anymore. “They’re going to hit you no matter what,” he said last week at a business forum in Qatar. “So we’re just going to play the game.”
It is impossible to argue that Trump and his family haven’t profited handsomely from his presidency. And it is clearly corruption out in the open.
Seems like a good time to remind everyone, via USAT, Fact check: Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust during presidency.
Third, via MSNBC: Trump’s pardons show he is becoming more brazenly corrupt. There are a number of examples in the piece, but it doesn’t get much more brazen than this:
Earlier this year, Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, a former nursing home company executive who pleaded guilty in 2024 to tax crimes. You read that right: Walczak told the court he was guilty. Yet while her son’s pardon decision was pending, Walczak’s mother received an invitation to Mar-a-Lago for a $1-million-a-plate fundraiser with a promise of a personal meeting with the president. She attended the dinner and, three weeks later, Trump pardoned her son.
Funny how that worked.
According to the Speaker of the House, purportedly a Check on the excesses of the Executive Branch, the openness is virtuous. Per the Independent:
@Scott F.: Wow, Mike Johnson is such a lawyer. You might notice that nowhere in his comments does he say anything like “this isn’t a problem” or “I think it’s fine”. He says, “it’s out in the open”. Which is true. It can give the impression that he’s fine with it, but doesn’t commit him to that position.
I continue to think that he’s a lot better at his job than Kevin McCarthy.
@Scott F.: I’m glad you noted that, as I meant to include a clip of Johnson saying that. It is remarkably gross.
Trump does it in the open, we have evaluated it and it is clearly selling access. There were accusations that Biden did that but no evidence. So since the evaluation is easy, what happens next? Nothing! Johnson, good Christian that he is, totally supports the obvious corruption.
Steve
@Steven L. Taylor:
The grossest part from Johnson is this:
As if any Joe American who evaluates that what Trump is doing is corrupt has any recourse beyond public protests, blog comments, and strongly worded letters to the editor. Dissent gets dismissed as “fake news.” Then the administration and its enablers spin the muzzled opposition as silence and we all know that silence is acceptance.
Ergo, Trump’s corruption is acceptable. Checkmate, libs!
Within weeks of winning the 2016 election, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago doubled its membership entry fee, to $200,000. A spokesman for the club said it remained terrific value given membership provided access to the President of the United States, his family and inner circle! As indeed it did, and does again. The entry fee is currently a cool $1 million.
I’ve always been puzzled that the media has shown so little interest in learning who has taken advantage of this opportunity, especially when we get occasional tidbits such as an Australian member expressing concern to his own government that Trump had shared classified information with him about nuclear submarines. Democrats in Congress have also been astonishingly remiss in failing to hold formal investigations into the matter when they had to authority to do so. Indeed it was extraordinary that hardly anybody asked Trump in 2016 how he intended to handle the massive conflicts of interest that would arise if he became president, let alone demanded undertakings that he would sell his businesses or place them in a true arm’s length blind trust.
Yet MAGA Republicans and their vast propaganda network spent five years pretending that Hunter Biden introducing some business associates to his vice president father was a shameful scandal justifying impeachment.
The failure of the Democratic Party and the media to make Trump’s open corruption the most noteworthy stain on his presidencies is incomprehensible.
@steve: You say this as if you have no idea of what a good Christian’s beliefs are. Perhaps your ignorance of your fellow countrymen could be remedied, before you continue to put your foot in your mouth?
@Ken_L: Joe Biden forgetting about the American Soldiers he got killed was a national embarrassment, which he did during the Fated Debate. That he got them killed to protect his money-laundering is simply a sidenote. The military industrial complex rolls on, and people starve and die.
For want of a goat, the war was lost! Eyes bleed, and rats feast! (Yes, I realize you don’t actually read about the War, simply assume it’s somehow “going well” under the Dictator we hired).