The number of money scandals in Trumpland is overwhelming
The Economist
AS A candidate, Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and make government work for ordinary Americans. As a president, he presides over a staggeringly fetid administration. His former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, even wears clothes made from swamp creatures. Among the luxury goods on display during his trial on 32 counts of financial fraud and money-laundering was a python coat for which he paid $18,500, nearly twice what he paid for an ostrich waistcoat, but a mere fraction of what he spent on clothes, rugs, and garden landscaping—all funded by lobbying for foreign governments.
The prosecution alleged that Mr Manafort lowballed his income by $16.5m so as to pay less tax, and fraudulently obtained $20m worth of bank loans (none of Mr Manafort’s 31 foreign bank accounts were apparently willing or able to supply the necessary credit). The government’s lawyers also provided evidence that Mr Manafort dangled a job in the White House in front of a banker from whom he hoped to borrow. In response, Mr Manafort’s lawyers sought to remind jurors that he was a Republican, perhaps hoping that tribal loyalty would sway some of them to agree with the president that government prosecutors were engaged in a “total witch hunt”.
Mr Manafort’s case is the most outlandish, but it is no outlier in Trumpland. The president’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, is under investigation for fraud. Neither man served in the White House, but plenty of other people followed around by money scandals have. Two cabinet officials—Scott Pruitt and Tom Price—have been ****** out amid ethics scandals (Mr Price spent over $1m of taxpayer money on private and military flights; Mr Pruitt’s alleged violations were too numerous to list). Other administration officials have similar concerns nipping at their heels. Democrats hope to convince voters that congressional Republicans bear some responsibility—and should pay the price in November—for the administration’s ethics deficit. That may prove harder than they would like.
Called to ordure
If so, it will not be for a lack of targets. On August 13th, the Campaign Legal Centre (CLC), a non-partisan ethical watchdog, filed an extensive complaint against Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, urging the Commerce Department’s inspector general to investigate him. The complaint alleges that Mr Ross helped make policy decisions that could have affected stock and other interests that he did not fully disclose that he owned. Mr Ross, via his personal lawyer, denied wrongdoing.
The Office of Government Ethics, an independent agency, has already accused Mr Ross of contravening his ethics agreement by taking short positions on holdings he promised to divest, and of “omissions and inaccurate statements”. John Thune, a Republican senator from South Dakota, joined Democrats in urging an investigation of Mr Ross’s finances. In July Mr Ross admitted to “inadvertent errors in completing the divestitures required by my ethics agreement”, and promised to sell his equities and put the proceeds into Treasury bonds. Mr Ross has previously faced allegations of concealing an investment in a Russian shipping firm with ties to Vladimir Poroshenko’s *******-in-law.
Forbes, which is to billionaires as
Sports Illustrated is to swimsuits, has accused Mr Ross of inflating his wealth and reports that “many of those who worked directly with him claim that Ross wrongly siphoned or outright stole a few million here and a few million there”, an accusation Mr Ross also denies.
Five days before the CLC filed its complaint against Mr Ross, Chris Collins, a congressman from upstate New York and the first sitting member of Congress to back Mr Trump in 2016, was arrested. Federal prosecutors allege that he tipped off his ******* that a biotech firm, on whose board he served and in which he was one of the largest shareholders, had a disappointing ******* trial. His *******, who was also charged, allegedly sold his shares and then tipped off four other people. Both Mr Collinses plead not guilty to the charges. Mr Collins has suspended his re-election campaign and is trying to remove his name from the ballot.
Many smaller scandals that would ordinarily draw more attention have become so much background noise. Earlier this year Brenda Fitzgerald resigned from running the Centres for Disease Control, America’s federal public-health agency, after she was discovered trading tobacco stocks. Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, spent $31,000 of taxpayers’ money on a dining-room set for his office. He accepted responsibility, but also explained: “I left it to my wife, you know, help choose something...I dismissed myself from this issue.”
Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, has charged taxpayers for his private-jet travel, and failed to disclose that he owned shares in a gun firm in Montana and then met executives and lobbyists from that firm. A spokesman said that the value of shares was below the threshold required for disclosure, and that anyway the meeting was a social call. The desire to avoid other passengers while flying has been a recurring theme: last year Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, took eight trips by military aircraft, costing taxpayers almost $1m.
And then there are all the Trump family hangers-on who have found jobs in the federal bureaucracy. Eric Trump’s former wedding planner runs the New York branch of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. On August 7th ProPublica, an investigative-journalism non-profit, reported that three members of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s swish country club in Palm Beach, exercise undue influence within the Department of Veterans Affairs—despite the fact that none of them has ever served in the government or the armed forces.
All this is before taking into consideration any conflicts of interest on the part of Mr Trump himself. Democrats have dusted off the phrase “culture of corruption”, which they used to great effect in the 2006 mid-terms. Then, George W. Bush’s administration was tottering after it turned out that the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina was being led by an Arabian-horse enthusiast appointed by Mr Bush. The 2006 election also coincided with a money scandal involving Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, which has many echoes of Mr Manafort’s escapades. Democrats hope to connect the current administration’s ethical woes to a broader tale of Republicans blithely backstroking around the swamp that Mr Trump was supposed to drain.
Yet it is unlikely that voters in, say, Arkansas will care enough about the ethical failings of a congressman from upstate New York whom they have never heard of, or of the cabinet secretary of a department with obscure responsibilities, to vote against a Republican candidate whom otherwise they would have supported. Asked whether the Trump administration’s scandals have come up in North Dakota’s hotly contested Senate race, Jim Fuglie, a former state Democratic Party official-turned-pundit, says that voters are more worried about tariffs. North Dakota’s Senate race, he argues, “turns on the price of soyabeans …If it’s $6, [Heidi] Heitkamp [the Democratic incumbent] wins.” Laura Belin, author of “******* Heartland”, a blog about Iowa politics, says she doesn’t think “the public at large is really tuned into” the administration’s ethics scandals. Those are mainly fodder for “the activist class”.
Mr Trump’s administration may be so scandal-ridden that each ethical peccadillo just seems like more of the same.
Stephen Bannon, his ousted adviser, famously said that the way to win is to “flood the zone with *******”, thereby overwhelming anyone’s ability to focus on one thing for more than a single news cycle. “Maybe we’re just like the rest of the country,” says Mr Fuglie. “We’re shaking our heads, and saying, ‘Oh, jeez—there he goes again’.”
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