Wayne O'Leary

Corruption Incorporated

If the reality hadn’t been so nerve-racking for so many, it would have been amusing to watch Donald Trump and his fellow GOP hypocrites shed crocodile tears over the 800,000 victims of the partial government shutdown. These were, after all, the people whom the president had demeaned for years as denizens of the Washington swamp, the redundant products of excessive liberal spending, living on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers and serving no useful purpose.

The irony here is that the numerical ranks of federal workers have remained flat for 50 years, while the number of private-sector workers and the nation’s overall population have each approximately doubled in size. Yet the proportionately shrinking federal workforce has been designated a prime candidate for the swamp drainage needed to “make America great again,” being the key component of the so-called administrative state Trump budget cutters came into office vowing to deconstruct.

In truth, there is a Washington swamp, but government workers, who perform indispensable tasks, are not part of it; it consists instead of the thousands of corporate lobbyists whose ranks have swelled beyond measure since Trump took office with promises of lucre in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, and deregulation. Above all, it consists of those in positions of power within the Trump administration, the most repellent of the swamp creatures, bottom-feeders who slither their way silently through the primordial ooze in search of opportunities for personal aggrandizement.

In the past, such individuals occasionally did some good in the process of doing well; these current self-seekers just do well. They make no bones about it; the government is there to be used to their advantage. The fact that they don’t really need the money or the perks — this is the richest administration in history — seems to have little to do with their rapacity; it’s instinctual, a function of their lizard brains.

Many of the most familiar names have already left Washington one step ahead of prosecution, after milking as much petty graft from their government “service” as possible. Among the departed are Tom Price, ex-secretary of Health and Human Services; Scott Pruitt, ex-director of the Environmental Protection Agency; David Shulkin, ex-secretary of Veterans Affairs; and (most recently) Ryan Zinke, ex-secretary of the Interior.

Price, Pruitt, and Shulkin improperly used government resources for extravagant personal air travel and holiday excursions. Pruitt additionally engaged in extensive influence peddling and accepted favors from private interests. Zinke committed a variety of sins, including the usual travel-spending abuses (an administration favorite) plus ethical violations involving conflicts of interest, shady land deals, and misuse of public funds.

Then, there are the resident swamp creatures not yet formally charged: Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development secretary, who has used his office to generate business for his son; Betsy DeVos, Education secretary, who holds investments in companies financing student loans; Wilbur Ross, Commerce secretary, accused of insider trading while in office and meeting secretively with officials of companies whose stock his family owns; and Steven Mnuchin, Treasury secretary, fond of appropriating military planes to fly him and his wife to distant vacation spots at government expense.

This sort of petty corruption starts at the top, and deep in the morass resides the biggest swamp creature of them all, President Donald Trump, whose corruption is anything but petty. Hovering nearby is the reptilian Jared Kushner, senior advisor and son-in-law, whose protected self-dealing includes engaging in financial relations (through his Kushner Companies) with overseas businesses having vested interests in US federal legislation, maintaining undivested banking and realty assets, and reportedly using his position to lure foreign investment (Chinese) in his real-estate properties by facilitating acquisition of immigration green cards.

The alpha swamp creature himself, meanwhile, has retained all of his own pre-presidency financial assets, dismissing the usual practice of divesting holdings or placing them in a blind trust while in government. He still earns royalties from foreign distribution of The Apprentice; has business ventures in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Scotland, and the Philippines (which may explain his affinity for Philippine dictator Duterte); rents space in New York’s Trump Tower, headquarters of the Trump Organization, to private corporations and foreign governments; uses his Washington hotel, Trump International, to house visiting foreign dignitaries at a profit; and operates the sleazy Donald J. Trump Foundation, a supposed charity currently in state litigation, for personal benefit and as an illegal cover for collecting and dispensing political funds.

Hanging fire regarding the Donald’s continuing foreign business entanglements is the whole question of their constitutionality under Article I, Section 9, clause 8 (the “emoluments clause”), which bars sitting presidents from accepting compensation (emoluments) from foreign governments seeking to influence US foreign policy. The swamp creature in chief could ultimately face impeachment charges for multiple violations of the Constitution.

Trump comes by his ethically challenged approach to life honestly. A remarkable New York Times exposé from Oct. 3 of last year, which somehow flew under the radar in the blizzard of pre-election campaign coverage, details the manner in which Donald’s father, Fred, New York City builder, real-estate magnate, and master tax dodger, established the postwar Trump fortune — mainly by taking advantage of federally subsidized cut-rate construction loans — and passed it on intact to Donald (principally) and his siblings, who expanded it by perfecting Trump senior’s strategy of systematic tax avoidance and exploitation of tenants.

Using interviews and extensive documentation from the 1990s and earlier, the article (by Times reporters David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner) presents a literary montage of hidden property transfers, questionable building appraisals, undervalued assessments, bogus capital improvements, sham corporations, and padded receipts, together amounting to “a pattern of deception and obfuscation.” Donald Trump, it concluded, “participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.”

Donald, in short, didn’t get it on his own or, it would seem, get it legally. Regrettably, New York state’s statute of limitations has largely run out on his pre-presidential offenses. Fortunately for the public, however, Washington’s swamp thing is now out in the light, crawling around in plain sight, where his transgressions are glaringly obvious for all to see.

Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2019

Populist.com