President Trump’s brazen corruption is both a source and symptom of a terrible sickness in our political system.
From his days in real estate to his epic lawbreaking as president, Trump has always acted as if he can just ignore rules that apply to everyone else.
It was bad enough in his first term. But after Trump-friendly Supreme Court justices decided the courts could not hold him accountable for breaking the law while in office, he has put the grifting pedal to the metal. And he’s not bothering to hide it.
It is a sad sign of how disillusioned and cynical many Americans have become that they view this trait as something to be admired — “shamelessness is [Trump’s] superpower.”
Just as toxic, or maybe even more so, is the shameful behavior of Republican elected officials, pundits and other Trump allies who ignore or justify the spectacle of Trump and his family enriching themselves at the same time his actions will make it harder for millions of Americans to care for their own families.
Just as people have come to expect — and some to accept — that Trump will lie about anything, many Americans view self-enrichment as part of the Trump package. They’re willing to ignore it if they embrace the rest of his agenda or just enjoy watching him “own the libs.”
But the latest gigantic grift may be too much for even some Trump supporters to swallow.
I’m talking about the $400 million ultra-luxury jet that Trump wants to accept as a gift from the government of Qatar.
Trump believes he deserves, at all times, to be surrounded by gold and swaddled in luxury. He apparently thinks that Air Force One is not up to snuff — remember when he reportedly called the White House a dump?
The U.S. government would have to spend many millions retrofitting the plush jet with the high-tech communications and security features required for what must function as a mobile White House.
Trump’s plan is that when he leaves office — if he ever does — the upgraded jet will go with him. It would be owned by the nonprofit that is raising money for his presidential library.
Unlike Trump’s cryptocurrency grift, which allows foreign companies and governments to directly enrich Trump and his family but is complicated and hard to explain, the gift of a “palace in the sky” is pretty easy to understand.
It’s also pretty easy to see the corruption in having Attorney General Pam Bondi sign off on a memo justifying the illegal deal.
Before going to work for Trump, Bondi’s lobbyist firm was being paid $115,000 per month for its services on behalf of the government of Qatar — about 50 percent more in a single month than the median American household makes in a year. Even at that rate, it would take Bondi’s firm more than four months of foreign agenting to get together the $500,000 entrance fee to join Donald Trump Jr.’s new access-selling private club in Georgetown.
Fortunately for Bondi, she sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in Trump’s social media company just before he announced his so-called “liberation day” tariffs and sent the stock market tumbling.
And then there are the millions that ultra-wealthy CEOs have been spending to get VIP treatment at the inauguration or to buy Trump’s meme coin for access to private dinners at Mar-a-Lago and the White House.
Yeah, those Trumps are really draining the ol’ swamp, huh?
To make it worse, they’re making it easier to get away with corruption by shutting down legal safeguards. As the New York Times reported, the Trump administration has:
disbanded a Justice Department unit dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency crimes; suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it a crime for companies that operate in the United States to bribe foreign officials, and narrowed enforcement of a law requiring lobbyists for foreign governments to register and disclose what they are paid.All that is evidence that Trump’s corruption and authoritarianism go hand in hand in demolishing the rule of law and making our country more like others, where the government operates primarily in the interest of the ruler’s friends and family.
As retired judge Thomas Moukawsher wrote recently, “Corruption in the Trump administration is so pervasive it’s hard to keep track of whether President Donald Trump’s dash for dictatorship or his dash for cash is moving faster.”
Congressional Democrats such as Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are stepping up to call out and resist the administration’s corruption. It is long past time for congressional Republicans to join them.
Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.
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