Day 1,001: Standard Thursday: corruption, more corruption and gross incompetence
It doesn’t seem possible that the Donald Trump administration could be revealed to be more corrupt and incompetent than previously reported.
And yet they are.
Thursday revealed international and domestic corruption each on the shortlist for most corrupt things an American president has ever done.
As to the former, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney openly admitted the crux of the impeachment inquiry: Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Democratic rivals in exchange for aid.
The admission is a public acknowledgement that Trump tied national security to a personal favor. Mulvaney readily confessed to reporters, “that’s why we held up the money.”
This is the type of corruption likely never exhibited before by an American president. Meanwhile, Trump is sitting around shouting and tweeting that everything is “perfect,” hoping anyone will believe him.
Mulvaney also announced — in a could-not-be-more-obvious-or-corrupt cash grab — that Trump’s resort just outside Miami would host the G7 summit next year.
Mulvaney even admitted there were other suitable options but they chose the Trump property instead.
Mulvaney seemed to believe it was all okay and not violative of the emoulments clause in the Constitution because it was being done “at cost.”
There are at least two big problems with that argument:
- The property will get tens of millions of dollars in international exposure and publicity, all for free.
- “At cost” doesn’t mean anything because Trump can determine what that cost is and there’s no accounting oversight. What is the true cost of a room rental? Is it the mere cost of paying staff to clean it? How do taxes get baked into that? “At cost” is a fiction being told simply to try and convince people that this is something other than the blatant corruption it obviously is.
Notably, Trump’s property is hemorrhaging cash. It badly needs the infusion from, say, thousands of people descending on it in a highly publicized conference.
Outside of corruption, the decision to abandon Kurdish allies in Syria is having predictable results: Kurds are being overrun by Turkish forces, ISIS prisoners are already running free from prisons and the Trump administration is trying to spin the disaster as a win.
Turkey agreed to pause fighting for five days with an ultimatum to the Kurds: leave the land you’ve inhabited or die.
In short, the U.S. moved troops to allow Turkey to do what it always wanted to do: annihilate the Kurds. There was no penalty for this, as the U.S. stabbed a longtime ally in the back, got embarrassed internationally and appears weak.
Trump has wildly flip-flopped on the Kurds over the past year.
Thursday, he sounded happy about the ethnic cleansing undertaken by Turkey.
It’s hard to remember a single day that had a worse look for the U.S. — and more specifically an American president — than Thursday.
There was an admission of wide-ranging international corruption, like never before seen.
There was the gleeful announcement of domestic corruption, like never before seen.
And there was the horrific policy that wiped out a longtime American ally for no real reason.
1,001 days in, 461 to go
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