Tag Archives: corruption

A Little Help For My Friends…

Welcome to our banana republic, where rules don’t matter but relationships and loyalty to the despot do.

Where to start?

Well, first there were the pardons.  In the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin explained that authoritarians dispense both punishment and largesse based on their own whims–unconstrained by quaint mechanisms like legal rules.

The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. That’s the real lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of today’s commutations and pardons by President Trump.

By now, Americans who follow the news know the names of the high-profile criminals Trump pardoned:  Rod Blagojevich, the corrupt former governor of Illinois, who was eight years into a sentence of fourteen years; Michael Milken, the junk-bond king; Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, and Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. (The last three all pled guilty.)

The common link among this group is that all have some personal connection to the President. Blagojevich was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice,” and he was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald, a close friend of and lawyer for James Comey, the former F.B.I. director who is a Trump enemy. Explaining his action today, Trump said of the case against Blagojevich, “It was a prosecution by the same people—Comey, Fitzpatrick—the same group.” Milken’s annual financial conferences are a favorite meeting place for, among others, Trump’s moneyed friends. (Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner spoke at last year’s gathering.) Milken is also an active philanthropist, as Trump observed: “We have Mike Milken, who’s gone around and done an incredible job for the world, with all of his research on cancer, and he’s done this and he suffered greatly. He paid a big price, paid a very tough price.” Trump’s explanation for the Kerik pardon is probably the most revealing. The President said that Kerik is “a man who had many recommendations from a lot of good people. (Kerik was appointed police commissioner by Rudolph Giuliani.)

Toobin says Trump’s pardons show that he can reward his friends and his friends’ friends. The message is clear: better to be a dictator’s friend, since he can also punish his enemies.

Other media sources have pointed out that all of the recipients–there were 11 total– had either an inside connection or had been promoted on Fox News. Then, of course, there was money:  Business Insider reported that Trump also pardoned Paul Pogue, a construction-company owner who pled guilty in 2010 to underpaying his taxes by nearly half a million dollars. Coincidentally, Pogue’s son and daughter-in-law donated over $200,000 to Trump’s campaign just since August,  although their cumulative previous donations to Republican campaigns came to less than $10,000.

And speaking of the pardon power…

According to Julian Assange’s lawyer, President Trump offered the WikiLeaks chief a pardon if he would agree to say that Russia had nothing to do with hacking emails from Democrats during the 2016 presidential election.

It’s all about helping your friends and screwing over those who are insufficiently devoted to the “dear leader.”

Last week, Trump named Richard Grenell, reportedly a “fierce advocate” of the President who has been the (detested and embarrassing) ambassador to Germany, as acting director of national intelligence, overseeing the 17 U.S. spy agencies. From all reports, Grenell is a massively unqualified rightwing political hack.

There’s also the fact that Grenell may have been put into the acting DNI role to protect the president’s political interests.

Grenell is replacing former National Counterterrorism Center director and retired Vice Admiral Joseph Maguire in the acting role. On Thursday afternoon, the Washington Post reported that Trump berated Maguire last week over a classified briefing one of his deputies had given Congress on 2020 election security.

The New York Times reports that the official, Shelby Pierson, “warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected” and that that briefing “angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.”

Thanks to the spineless and arguably treasonous Republicans in the U.S. Senate, Trump no longer feels the need to hide his corruption. Instead, he revels in it.

Comments

They Don’t Even Want To Hear It…

In the U.S. Senate, Republicans are repeating a line made infamous by Indiana’s own Earl Landgrebe during the Nixon Impeachment: My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.

Landgrebe’s line also describes the current Indiana GOP, which has declined to hear any debate about a good government measure offered by Rep. Ed Delaney as an amendment to House Bill 1414. (Regular readers will recall my post on this effort to tell Indiana’s utilities that they won’t be permitted to go ahead with their plans to close down their inefficient, costly and carbon-producing coal plants unless the EPA has mandated the closure.)

After noting that what he termed HB 1414’s “coal bailout” would raise the cost of electricity for Hoosiers and worsen the air quality in the state, Delaney proposed an amendment that would make it a Level 6 felony for a coal interest or person who has a vested interest in coal to make a contribution to a political candidate or committee.

“I’ve grown concerned about the growing distrust Hoosiers have in our political system,” DeLaney added.

“If the state is going to subsidize an industry at the expense of taxpayers, lawmakers should not be allowed to take political contributions from that industry. Special interests shouldn’t be influencing such impactful legislation. The amendment I offered today would’ve held the coal industry to the same standards as casinos who can’t contribute to political campaigns. I am concerned to restore a greater sense of trust between Hoosiers and their legislators.”

The amendment was blocked from debate on the House floor by House Republicans.

At all levels of government, when Republicans have the power to do so, they block efforts to conduct the sorts of full and fair explorations that would be likely to  inform the public but would be politically detrimental to the GOP.

If the facts make them look bad, they simply refuse to allow discussion of those facts.

In the case of HB 1414, as I noted previously, the utilities oppose it, environmentalists oppose it, and consumers get screwed by it. Coal companies must therefore depend upon their friends in the legislature to ignore the facts and protect them–and no one is friendlier than a lawmaker who benefits from an industry’s generous campaign contributions.

Representative Delaney’s amendment would remove the impression that coal interests had “purchased” the “friendship” of state legislators. Surely, if the impression is incorrect or unfair, lawmakers would be delighted to publicly debate it and pass it.

In Washington, they’re following in Earl Landgrebe’s footsteps. Despite taking an oath to act as impartial jurors, they are prepared to exercise raw power to prevent testimony that would confirm the accuracy of what they already know, because that testimony would be further evidence that they value party and power more than country or integrity.

The Republican super-majority in Indiana has declined even to debate the propriety of a rule against legislative bribery, presumably because citizens who followed such a debate (few as they are likely to be in the absence of local journalism) would see them protecting their ability to raise money from industries they subsidize.

Talk about a quid pro quo…

Comments

Worse Than James Buchanan

Sorry about the erroneous email yesterday–a glitch on the site.

I’m at a loss to understand people who vote for their own destruction.

In Great Britain–where voters have just opted to be considerably less Great–goofy Boris Johnson will “lead” the country to withdraw from modern reality and economic stability. Here in the good old U.S. of A., the elected representatives of the cult that used to be the GOP continue to support the continuing embarrassment that is Donald Trump (recent example: “I’m too intelligent to believe in climate change”) and the daily insanities being perpetrated by his corrupt administration.

They are so far in his pocket (or up an anatomical entry point) that when he was recently forced  to pony up two million dollars to repay charities (including a children’s cancer charity) from which his “foundation” stole in order to pay legal settlements rated no reproofs from Grand Old Party brownshirts.

How substandard is this “President”? Gail Collins recently explained why historians expect him to replace James Buchanan. She began with a summary of the ways Trump is profiting from the Presidency.

The Trump charity scandal is an old story, but the impeachment process puts it in a new light. Particularly if you combine it with the money he’s piling up from his Scottish golf resort (thank you Air Force visitors), the Washington hotel (welcome, Saudi officials) and from what the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington estimated were more than 2,300 conflicts of interest between his personal finances and his day job.

Collins noted–but dismissed– parallels with Andrew Johnson:

Andrew Johnson was another awful president and history’s impeachment star until now, but he was praised for his financial integrity. “After becoming president, when prominent New York merchants tried to give him a magnificent carriage and span of horses he refused the gift,” noted Brenda Wineapple, the author of a history of the Johnson impeachment. “‘Those occupying high official positions,’ he politely said, must ‘decline the offerings of kind and loyal friends.’”

Trump would find that sentiment inconceivable.

It’s Buchanan, however, who has historically been considered America’s worst President. Yet even Buchanan compares favorably to today’s deeply disturbed occupant of the Oval Office.

“Unlike Trump, Buchanan was a generous man,” said Robert Strauss, who happens to be the author of a biography of Buchanan titled “Worst. President. Ever.” Buchanan “took in college students who couldn’t afford their room and board,” Strauss added. He never reneged on a debt.

It was published in October 2016. Strauss is still sticking with Buchanan, whom he calls “a nice guy put in the wrong job.” Obviously, secession tops being laughed at by leaders of other democratic powers at a cocktail party. But Trump could qualify for the bottom of the barrel if you throw in personal behavior and presume it’s better to be a nice guy in the wrong job than an awful guy in the wrong job.

It’s also highly unlikely that Buchanan ever attacked a sixteen-year-old girl for being (much) more widely admired than he was.

Comments

Corruption Everywhere

Talk about the “times that try men’s (and women’s) souls.”

I am not naive; I know the dark side of America’s history. I know we have repeatedly failed to live up to our professed values. But there has also always been a bright side– a reason this country has been a beacon of hope for so many oppressed people, a reason idealistic citizens have dedicated themselves to public service, a reason millions of  individuals have been proud to be Americans.

It is no longer possible to ignore the degree to which those values and ideals are being trashed by the gangsters in this administration and the self-serving GOP cowards in the Senate. Washington lawmakers are no longer engaged in disagreements about policy. Instead, the government has been paralyzed by an administration that is a criminal enterprise–a criminal enterprise abetted by Republicans in the Senate, most prominently Mitch McConnell.

The corruption is breathtaking, and Trump is only one manifestation of the rot.

The Campaign Legal Center recently filed an FEC complaint detailing the NRA’s coordination with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in the 2016 campaign. It used a shell corporation through which it illegally funneled millions in in-kind contributions– unlawfully coordinating with Johnson and other candidates it was backing.

Last August, Jonathan Chait had an article in New York Magazine titled “The Whole Republican Party Seems to be Going to Jail Now,” in which he ticked off the operatives who were then behind bars (and those who belonged there).

There was Paul Manafort, who embezzled funds, failed to report income, and falsified documents, and his partner and fellow Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, who confessed to participating in all these crimes.

There was (and is) Wilbur Ross.

Forbes reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may have stolen $120 million from his partners and customers. Meanwhile Ross has maintained foreign holdings in his investment portfolio that present a major conflict of interest with his public office.

There were the three Trump cronies running the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite lacking  any official government title or public accountability. According to Pro Publica, all three “used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests.”

Chait concluded that

Trump appears to select for greed and dishonesty in his cronies…. The sorts of people Trump admires are rich and brash and disdainful of professional norms, and seem unlikely to rat on him. The sorts of people who are apt to work for Trump seem to be those who lack much in the way of scruples.

The administration is understaffed and disorganized to the point of virtual anarchy, opening up promising avenues for insiders to escape accountability. Trump’s public ethos, despite his professions during the campaign that he could “drain the swamp” and impose a series of stringent ethics reforms, runs toward relativism — he famously tolerates anybody who supports him, regardless of criminal history or other disqualifications, defining their goodness entirely in terms of personal loyalty. And above all there is the simple fact that Trump himself is a wildly unethical businessman who has stiffed his counterparties and contractors, and worked closely with mobsters, his entire career. A president who is continuing to profit personally from his office is hardly in any position to demand his subordinates refrain from following suit.

Chait’s article was written in August of 2018. Since then, among other scandals, we have seen William Barr besmirch the reputation of the Department of Justice by mischaracterizing the Mueller Report and refusing to follow clear laws requiring him to inform Congress about the whistleblower complaint.  We have seen Mike Pompeo turn the State Department into a tool of Trump’s ego. (A Washington Post article reported a growing belief among State Department officials that Pompeo has subordinated the Department’s mission and abandoned colleagues in the service of President Trump’s political aims.)

It is highly likely that Mike Pence was involved in the effort to blackmail Ukraine’s President into manufacturing dirt on Biden’s son.

Even administration officials unconnected to the events that triggered the Impeachment inquiry are conspicuously corrupt and incompetent. Betsy DeVos, anyone? Elaine Chao? Rick Perry? (Whoops–evidently Perry is involved in the Ukraine cesspool.)

Political scientists are busy trying to explain how we got here, and–assuming we can turn things around, which is by no means a given–we’ll need to know how and why and what to do to avoid a repeat. But all I can focus on is the need to clean house.

Whatever happens with Impeachment, in 2020 we need massive turnout and an overwhelming rejection of both the criminals who currently control our federal government, and their enablers in the Senate.

We can argue about policy later.

Comments

Remember When We Cared About Ethics?

Pro Publica recently revisited an ethics case in Louisiana that has dragged on for nine years.

Now, when I think of states with strongly ethical political cultures, Louisiana doesn’t come to mind, but even in the state that gave us Huey Long and David Duke, the situation on which they reported is notable.

It’s been nine years since the Louisiana Ethics Board first took up what its former chairman called “the most egregious case” to ever come before him.

In 2010, the board accused former state Sen. Robert Marionneaux Jr. of failing to disclose to the board that he was being paid to represent a company in a lawsuit against Louisiana State University. The lack of transparency was only part of the problem. Marionneaux offered to get the Legislature to steer public money toward a settlement, according to charges the Ethics Board later filed against him. The money would also help pay off his contingency fee, which an LSU lawyer pegged at more than $1 million.

Evidently, according to ethics advocates, the snail’s pace and limited scope of the case are due to the weaknesses of Louisiana’s ethics enforcement system.

In 2008, the Legislature delivered ethics reforms that then-Gov. Bobby Jindal billed as a new “gold standard” that any state would covet. But more than a dozen people involved in the system said in interviews that the reforms have done the opposite, chipping away at and dragging out ethics enforcement.

The consensus is that Jindal’s “new and improved” ethics rules created more loopholes than they closed.

Those of us who don’t live in Louisiana shouldn’t get cocky. It would behoove us to look at our own state capitals, and especially at the ethical disaster that is America’s current national administration.

If you Google “Trump Administration Corruption,” you will get 38 million hits. One of the most recent is a Bloomberg Interactive titled “Tracking the Trump Administration Scandals.”(Due to the large number of said scandals, the site allows you to sort by category: administration officials, Trump and his family, the Trump Organization and Trump associates, etc.)

If you are particularly interested in 2018, there’s Washington Monthly’s “A Year in Trump Corruption.” And last October, The New York Times published “Trump’s Corruption: The Definitive List.”

There’s much, much more.

Not unlike the citizens of Louisiana (large numbers of whom, during a gubernatorial election between David Duke and Edwin Edwards, sported bumper stickers saying “Vote for the Crook–It’s important”), we’ve gotten inured to the extent of the venality. To use a political science term, corruption has become normalized.

There will be those among defenders of the petty, self-absorbed criminal in the Oval Office who will insist that “they all did it.” Although there have certainly been unsavory people in high places over the years, that statement is manifestly untrue.

Even if it were accurate, however–even if former Presidents and their cabinets did engage in this degree of unethical or illegal behaviors–they had the good sense (or sense of shame) to hide it. This crew showcases it. Trump likes to insist that he’s “transparent”–when it comes to the transparency of his corruption, and that of his cabinet, that’s true.

There are two explanations for the tendency of Trump & company to flaunt their illegal and unethical behaviors: one, as a group, they aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. (Betsy DeVos comes to mind, but she has lots of none-too-bright company); and two, they don’t care. They believe–not without reason–that the public no longer expects government officials to adhere to ethical standards, that those in a position to punish them have been neutered, and that the United States of America–whatever our pretenses of ethical probity and morality–is no different from the corrupt regimes that Trump most admires.

If we do not rise up in 2020 and clean house, the whole country will be Louisiana.

Comments