*** “Never since the scandal-ridden administration of Ulysses S. Grant has there been an executive branch as nakedly given over to self-dealing as that of Donald Trump….no family has mixed business interests with public office like the Trumps. The appointment of close family members who are also corporate executives to ill-defined but top-level White House jobs is a first…His daughter Ivanka Trump has also served as an inspiration to dictators around the world.”
[ Sarah Chayes: On Corruption In America” ]
This post presents excerpts from. “Trump Holds the American People in Total Contempt” {Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 4/26/26}:
1] “To say that President Trump is corrupt is to somehow understate the size, scope and magnitude of his corruption.”
9] “With Trump..the misconduct is the concern. You might even say that his corruption, like his cruelty, is the point.”
2]. “..Trump’s corruption, which is so vast as to be a new phenomenon in American politics. The president and his family have leveraged his office to the tune of nearly $4 billion. They have received hundreds of millions of dollars from a network of branded cryptocurrency assets. Investors include large corporations, foreign nationals and state actors hoping to curry favor with the administration.”
*** “Trump perked up at the mention of bribes and got rather agitated. He told Tillerson he wanted him to help him get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act…..Looking at Tillerson, Trump said, “I need you to get rid of that law”….”Mr. President,” he said. “I’m not the guy to do that.”….Trump..turned to Stephen Miller….”Stephen, I want you to draft an executive order and repeal that law.” [Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius”]. [NOTE: this is an actual 2017 Oval Office conversation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How much ore do YOU need to know???]
3] “..consider the president’s pardons. Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, a crypto firm, was convicted in 2023 fro violating the Bank Secrecy Act. After Trump returned to office, Zhao – whose company donated software to World Liberty Financial so that it could start its own cryptocurrency. – lobbied for a pardon. In October of last year, Trump granted the pardon, raising the possibility that Zhao could recover his court-ordered fines. – $4.3 billion to the U.S. government as punishment for allowing criminal actors to use Binance for a broad array of illicit transactions, including child sex abuse, illegal narcotics and terrorism.”
4]. “Trump’s various projects. – his monuments to himself. – also appear to be little more than state-sanctioned opportunities for graft. The president has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy donors and large corporations for his proposed ballroom, presidential library and triumphal arch. Tens of millions of dollars marked for the library are unaccounted for..”
5] “Last but far from least is the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S., for damages for leaking his tax returns to the public in 2019 and 2020. [NOTE: which Trump promised to do in some speeches!] According to a recent news report, lawyers for the president are in talks with the I.R.S. to settle. This is tantamount to presidential looting of the Treasury, little different than if Trump had stolen the money outright.”
***. “Meanwhile, the big-business strand of America’s emerging kleptocratic network was awarded control of the agencies whose job is to protect the public from the worst effects of those very businesses” profit-seeking practices. The executives – and lobbyists-turned-government-officials went straight to work rewriting the rules in ways designed to maximize the gush of money into their collective coffers, not ease the burdens on ordinary Americans.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption In America” ]
6] “Despite the general reputation for graft that pervades the 19th century, it is hard to find anything like the personal corruption of Trump, even among Gilded Age presidents.”
7] “Looking through the 20th century, there is, of course, the administration of Warren G. Harding….Harding himself did not appear to be personally corrupt…”
8] “To walk through subsequent presidents is to get a similar picture. Is there gross misconduct? Yes. After all, Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Was there graft and petty corruption among other higher and lower officers in each administration? Also yes. But do we see anything like the self-dealing and naked personal enrichment of Trump and his family? No, we do not.”
10]. “Trump is a type, one of many figures around the world whose nationalist, patrimonial political movement is little more than a cover.”
***. “..Trump himself..is at once a symptom..of America’s increasingly corrupt system, and an exaggeration of it so extreme as to seem like a grotesque aberration…Trump’s bald use of his office to patronize and promote his businesses. – including raking in ‘kick-ups”. from lower echelons…outstrips anything I have witnessed in a developing country. As does his penchant for surrounding himself with men entwined with foreign criminal networks, and his don-like demand for fealty…Trump has taken mafia government to heights unrivaled in this country’s history.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption In America”]. [NOTE: Chayes was “special assistant on corruption to Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; advised David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal]
[“Trump has taken mafia government to heights unrivaled in this country’s history.” – let that sink in. Read this article in full. Read Chayes” book. Understand her context and experience for things she wrote.]
With Justice For All 