Let’s say it straight away: There has never been a more corrupt US president than Donald Trump. In all of American history, no one comes even close.
Two days in May as evidence number one: The public just learned that Trump’s stock portfolio recorded 3,600 transactions in the first quarter of this year – an average of almost 60 per day. A pace that would make even a day trader on meth blush. Many of these trades appear suspiciously well aligned with decisions made by the president himself. Nvidia shares, for example, soared after Trump announced that the company would be allowed to sell its cutting-edge AI chips to China. There were similarly conspicuously timed purchases and sales in advance of major government moves that affected other companies – from Intel to Palantir to Boeing. The Trump Organization claims all trades are made by an outside investment advisor. If this is true, he must have clairvoyant abilities.
But the alleged insider trading scheme from the Oval Office is chump change – just a few million dollars – compared to the self-serving scandal involving $1.8 billion in tax dollars currently being funneled through the Justice Department and the IRS.
Lawsuit against your own government
No sitting president has ever sued his own government for $10 billion. This is simply absurdly corrupt. However, that is exactly what Donald Trump did – claiming that he had been harmed by law enforcement actions before his re-election. Trump, like many of his supporters, stubbornly confuses prosecution with prosecution.
The judge responsible appointed an independent panel to examine the lawsuit because he suspected fraud. Before the case could be dismissed, interim Attorney General Todd Blanche – previously Trump’s personal lawyer – declared that the baseless lawsuit would be settled preemptively: not for ten billion, but for the symbolic sum of $1.776 billion, which Trump said he wanted to distribute to “persecuted political allies.”
This is blackmail. The president is forcing a Justice Department he controls to redirect taxpayer money – your money – to his most loyal supporters. This slush fund will create a gold rush among MAGA advocates and serve to reward the partisan fanatics who attacked the U.S. Capitol – and police officers – on his behalf.
Free ticket for the family
As if that wasn’t already a blatantly illegal abuse of power, it has been revealed that the “settlement” includes a commitment signed by the acting attorney general to ensure – in the hysterical capitalization of a Trump tweet – that the government is “FOREVER BARRED AND BARRED” from pursuing tax claims, audits, or related prosecutions against Trump, his family, or their companies. This is an attempt to secure a permanent free pass for the Trump family – a license to steal.
This is all insane. All of it is unethical, much of it illegal, and worthy of impeachment—but our system was not designed to deal with a shamelessly self-serving president, a spineless Republican Congress, and a complacent conservative Supreme Court that has refused to enforce the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause and has ruled that Trump enjoys immunity for actions as president. This ruling could prove to be the most consequential – and corrosive – act of judicial dereliction in American history. Against this partisan groupthink, individual acts of courage count. So kudos to Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Department’s top lawyer, who at least had the integrity to resign rather than oversee this taxpayer-funded looting.
To round off the corruption series: Trump announced that he would support Ken Paxton, the Texas poster boy of nepotism, in his primary election against incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn. Paxton’s scandals include a grotesque collection of fraud and bribery allegations that nearly led to his impeachment by the state legislature. But in Trumpland, corruption is not a flaw in the system – it is the system.
Late Roman decadence
This all smacks of late Rome, and one could almost expect Trump to appoint a horse to a vacant Cabinet position next – while Republicans rationalize the need for more equine representation. This is no more absurd than the parade of Trump nominees who refused to say at their Senate confirmation hearings that Biden won the 2020 election. The decision to parrot falsehood for partisan political gain normalizes deviation from any standard.
But anyone looking for a glimmer of hope in dark times will find one in the fact that corruption is often the very thing that brings down governments close to authority. And there are signs that this is exactly what is happening.
Trump’s billion-dollar self-enrichment, his knee-jerk bending of U.S. policy at the expense of long-term national interests and enduring values, comes at a time when nearly half of Americans report feeling extremely anxious about their own financial situation.
The base turns away
This fear is driven by the growing divide between Main Street and Wall Street – a divide further inflamed by a trade war and a real war unleashed by Trump. There is no end in sight, but rising energy prices, higher fertilizer costs and a stalled global economy are already foreseeable. While CEOs embrace the transactional nature of this president, kiss his ring and pay tribute, things look bleak for everyone not at the Trump trough. At a time when the super-rich are getting richer, the man in the White House is telling everyone else to go to hell.
Such conditions are precisely what are driving people to turn against an aging, autocratic president who despises the people who put him in office. It’s not just that Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted to the point where two-thirds of Americans reject his job. For the first time, Trump is also being rejected by a majority of white people without a college degree – his core electorate – who feel betrayed because Trump is pocketing billions while they can barely pay rent and food. Trump dismissed and ignored their concerns – and in doing so played away the anger over rising prices that carried him back to the presidency.
Trump’s goal is to make his theft so blatant that we become collectively numb and distort our democracy in the process. Conservatives once warned of the dangers of “crony capitalism” and corruption. Today they are silent and join in. It is the temporary triumph of party spirit over principle. Patriotism demands that we reaffirm the American spirit: that no man is above the law and our presidents are not kings.
