One of the forgotten stories of Donald Trump’s first term occurred five years ago, when the then-president attempted to host a G7 summit at one of his struggling companies. Even by his standards, it was pretty brutal.
Trump told some of the world’s most powerful leaders in no uncertain terms that if they wanted to participate in an international meeting, they would have to spend quite a bit of money at one of the venues he owns and where there was a shortage of customers. The Republican had already built a reputation for this hospitable money from foreign governments, but this represented an escalation: Trump was insist on money from foreign governments.
Sure, he eventually withdrew, but the effort was part of an ugly pattern. As David Dayen of The American Prospect recently explained in an op-ed for The New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s entire term in office has been characterized by profiteering schemes and the use of public resources for personal gain.”
Unfortunately, we can continue down the same path: Trump has also issued corrupt pardons to those guilty of corruption. To some extent without modern precedent, the Republican was in fact a pro-corruption president. Members of his cabinet faced so many allegations of corruption that it was difficult to keep track of them all.
And it’s a safe bet that his second term in the White House will be significantly worse. Less than a week after Election Day, disturbing evidence is already emerging. For example, the New York Times reported that the newly elected president “has not yet filed a legally required ethics pledge stating that he will avoid conflicts of interest and other ethical issues while in office.”
Under the Presidential Transition Act, Mr. Trump’s transition team was required to submit the ethics plan by October 1. Although the transition team’s leadership has independently developed a code of ethics and conflict of interest statement for its staff, these documents do not contain legally required language explaining how Mr. Trump himself will address conflicts of interest during his presidency. .
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, noted that Trump’s transition team would have to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration by Sept. 1. That didn’t happen.
Why does that matter? Because while that would have freed up millions of dollars in funding to cover transition costs, as the Times report noted, it would also impose a $5,000 limit on donations to the transition team and require the disclosure of all its donors.
“By refusing to sign that agreement, Mr. Trump effectively faces no limit on contributions and does not have to publicly name his donors,” the article said. “The money raised through the transition is not regulated by any other government agency.”
In other words, those who want to bribe the president-elect don’t need to place orders for overpriced wristwatches.
But wait, there’s more. The New York Times also reported on Howard Lutnick, the CEO of a financial services company called Cantor Fitzgerald, whose influential new role is raising eyebrows.
As co-chair of the transition team, Mr. Lutnick is responsible for identifying 4,000 new hires for the second Trump administration, including antitrust officials, securities lawyers and national security advisers with global expertise. But Mr. Lutnick has not deviated from running financial companies that serve corporate clients, traders, cryptocurrency platforms and real estate ventures around the world — all of which are regulated by the same agencies whose appointees he helps find.
Given Lutnick’s vast business interests, the Times added, it is unknown how he “can avoid violating the transition’s code of ethics.”
Looking ahead, there is little reason for optimism. Greg Sargent of The New Republic recently highlighted a broader context, noting that if Trump goes ahead with plans to purge much of the federal workforce and replace career officials with loyalists, Americans could soon see a dynamic in which independent officials are ‘muzzling themselves, both in terms of publishing good government data that contradicts the Trump propaganda line, and in terms of not letting people know, by blowing the whistle, when higher-ups, MAGA loyalists, corrupt the agency.”
I suspect that if a pollster asked Americans if they were comfortable with government corruption, the vast majority would say no. And yet, we are about to experience a brutal election moment when it comes to the corruption of the executive branch of the federal government.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
