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Notes -
Is presidential corruption still culture war?
You may or may not remember that back in January of this year President Trump, in his personal capacity, sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion in damages related to leaks of his tax returns by a contractor back in 2018-2020. I don't want to dig into the merits of the case as such, except I'll note the legal discussion I've read seems to have a consensus that the case is very weak. It is also very unusual for a sitting President to be suing the government he is in charge of. There are obvious conflicts of interest involved. So much so the judge in that case issued an order for the parties to explain how they are actually adverse to each other, how they disagree, so that the cases and controversies requirement of the constitution is satisfied.
As of today, it seems we may never find out how good the claims are or aren't, how adverse the parties are or aren't. Trump filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss his lawsuit, pursuant to the establishment of a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund". It's not even clear to me the fund is going to be administered by the United States government, as paragraph C provides:
Is this going to be the new normal? If you're President and Congress won't give you the money you want to pay your friends and allies you can get however much you want with this one weird trick!
ETA:
ABC reports that the fund will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by the Attorney General, but the members will all be removable at-will by the President.
MAGA is the most corrupt political movement in my lifetime in the US. It might be the most corrupt movement in US history, though I'm not sure how it would compare to some of the stuff in the Gilded Age. Republicans deflect the open corruption of Trump by presuming (mostly without evidence) that "all politicians do it, Trump is just honest about it!!!" Then they go off on something like Hunter Biden or Congressional stock trades, which involve like 1/100th of the value of what Trump is doing.
And Dems don't care that much either, as they'd rather focus on hallucinations like Trump raping children with Epstein. The corruption might appear in the laundry lists of grievances they throw out against Trump, but it's hardly a motivating factor for most.
I don't know how you can say this with a straight face when the last President blanket pardoned his own son for more than a decade of crimes.
He even did it preemptively, pardoning him for actions he could have taken in the future, all the way to the end of the Presidential term.
That same son made millions on bogus board positions in Ukraine which were obviously bribes. Ukraine which blew up into a war during that President's term, and where billions of dollars have been thrown down a black hole.
So, there's a really high bar for corrupt political movements.
Single digit millions. The highest serious estimate I have seen is that the whole "Biden crime family" operation netted $10-20 million. Two orders of magnitude less than the Trump family's buckraking. Also an order of magnitude less than Clinton family buckraking or the various financial scandals of the Hastert-DeLay paedoCongress, so I don't think you can claim that the Bidens were unusually corrupt by the standards of pre-Trump American politics.
I think the problem is that so many types of grift have been conflated.
Trump financially exploiting his own supporters (crypto, SPACs, trump media, trump sons promoting bullshit products and companies, trump steak type stuff). The left and never-trump republicans spoke about this far, far too much. Nobody cares when a fool is parted from his money by the leader he worships.
The usual bribes for friends and family members, as happened with eg Biden and as happens with Trump and his sons joining the boards of various startups that want some funding or regulatory allowance or serve a particular foreign interest or whatever.
The Saudi/Gulf money. Strong connections to the GOP for many decades. The Bush family were close. The Kushner fund. I don’t think there’s anything particularly new here.
The Trump self-promotion. Random third world countries touting future TRUMP hotels, TRUMP casinos and so on. This is venal but it ties into Trump’s brand, which has always been multi asset and fully integrated. The president making casino deals while he’s on diplomatic business, and rolling the two into one arrangement is on brand and expected, his supporters don’t care and there was every expectation he would do this before being elected.
Specific, “third world” style direct extraction of public funds with no fig leaf. This is where, for example, an African oil minister directly siphons a cut of every oil deal into a personal Swiss bank account. Or where the Lebanese ex central bank chief allegedly took a tiny cut of every transaction they did and had it diverted to a personal account for decades. Trump has arguably engaged in this with eg the current 1.78bn slush fund ‘deal’, and there are smaller but numerous previous examples.
The problem is that if you’ve spent years whining about 1-4, reporting 5 carries less weight.
If the crypto and SPACs were just about ripping off Trump's own supporters, I would agree with your point re. 1. But with all of 1, 3 and 4 the problem is not that Trump is getting paid, it is that some of the people paying Trump are smart enough to know what they are doing, and we can assume that they are getting something in return. But we don't know what is being sold, and in some cases (especially the crypto) we don't even know who it is being sold to.
One example where we do know is that Trump changed his views on the Tiktok ban around the time Tiktok investor Jeff Yass invested in the Truth Social SPAC. That moves the SPAC from scamming his own supporters to accepting bribes from a proxy for a Communist dictatorship.
Nobody thinks the Saudis deal with Jared Kushner is purely commercial. The question is whether this is a tip for his work on something which benefits both Saudi and US interests (presumably the Abraham accords), or whether it is a bribe for some piece of as-yet secret work which benefits Saudi interests and hurts US interests. Even if it is a tip, the dollar amount is so much larger than the customary and reasonable gift given in that kind of situation that it would be improper under conventional business or political ethics. When Eric Trump announces the groundbreaking on Trump Hotel Durkadurkastan, we don't know if it is a purely commercial transaction, a tip, or a bribe. (But we do know that the Durkadurkastanis see this as a distinction without a difference).
In addition, all five of your points involve dollar amounts which were 1-2 orders of magnitude higher under Trump than under previous corrupt presidents. For me, this is absolutely critical, although I agree that the average swing voter is innumerate and doesn't care. I don't think the Saudis paid Jared Kushner a few hundred million dollars* for a small favour, whereas people were willing to pay Hunter Biden a few hundred thousand dollars just to set up some meetings.
* My estimate of the NPV of the management fees on the $2 billion investment over the life of the fund, assuming the standard 2-and-20 fee.
Here’s my read of this:
Dollar amounts aren’t really a good indicator here. If someone paid Hunter Biden $2m it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have paid him $20m. Maybe Hunter felt that the former figure was the most he was willing to accept without embarrassing his father. It doesn’t really say anything about the services provided or resources available.
The really big money is kind of arbitrary. Kushner is unlikely to lose much more than many comparable managers the Saudis do business with, who also charge under a broadly comparable fee structure. Unlike a fully fake job or classic bribery / facilitation payment, there isn’t necessarily an absolute or even guaranteed relative loss on the actual capital spent.
Most people who think they can get something out of Trump lose. This is a truth through his entire career. Say what you will about him, he has screwed the screwers every single time. Countless well-educated, conniving types have tried to play him and they’ve all lost, throughout his business and political career. The man has a combination of natural instincts, zero loyalty and zero honor. The concept of a favor owed (by him) is anathema to his identity. Those who try to do business with him almost never win, whether the enterprise is a success or failure.
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