TRUMP CORRUPTION FACILITATED BY JOHN ROBERTS

IMMUNITY DECISION ENABLES AND EMBOLDENS

TRUMP

The ghosts of Credit Mobilier, Teapot Dome and Watergate must be asking: How in the hell is this guy getting away with far more than we ever dreamed.

On corruption, Washington-style, Donald Trump is in a league by himself. His net worth has almost tripled as he rakes in money from a crypto scam, peddles pardons for investor associates, and gives new meaning to insider trading.

Most of this is legal for the major reason he’s able to get away with it -- the 2024 Supreme Court decision that granted him broad immunity for any official act, which he interprets very generously.

“There is a zone of lawlessness around the Oval Office, erected by the Supreme Court when it granted current and former presidents effective immunity from prosecution if their crimes involved ‘official acts,’” Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice wrote last week. “Loot the taxpayers, misuse government power for graft and you’re off the hook.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision gave the President absolute immunity performing constitutional duties and presumptive immunity for other “official” acts.. The partisan decision, all Republican justices, wasn’t issued until July 1 of the election year, ending even any limited prosecution of Trump for inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol to try to overturn an honest election which Trump lost.

I doubt the timing was coincidental.

Michael Lutting, a former conservative federal judge, called the decision “abominable,” and in a dissent Justice Sotomayor said it makes Trump a “King, above the law.”

That’s the way an emboldened Trump sees it. With only rare exceptions, he acts like there are no guard rails to stop him.

The money grift is stunning, especially the crypto currency firm Trump established; he is shaking down investors and working to make sure the government doesn’t get in the way of the billions he’s hauling in.

Does this violate any legal restrictions? Not with his protective Supreme Court ruling.

Then there are his stock purchases, not infrequently tied to government actions. He bought Palantir stock, the big data firm and government contractor and right afterwards publicly praised the company, even giving its NASDAQ ticker number.

He bought Paramount and Netflix and Warner Brothers stock while the Justice Department was weighing a merger deal. This Justice Department has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump. He was buying Oracle stock while facilitating its purchase of Tik-Tok.

The president generally isn’t covered by insider trading restrictions. But post presidency there could have been an investigation into this shady activity. Not with John Roberts’ decision, however.

Likewise, some of the unprecedented number of pardons he has issued raise serious questions. Some have been granted to criminals directly tied to his business interests, others for political benefit. Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the possibility that a broad grant of immunity might allow bribery. She voted for the decision anyway.

Trump, of course, would say these were tied to official acts.

This is a family racket. ProPublica disclosed that a White House official urged the Pentagon to approve and expedite an unusual loan for a start-up company. Predictably, the Pentagon obliged and gave a record loan to the company where Donald Trump, Jr. is a big investor.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law has been tapped as Middle East negotiator at the same time his investment firm is doing business with some of those countries.

In normal times, these would be unacceptable conflicts of interest. These are not normal times.

The latest is the sordid IRS-Justice debacle. First, Trump supposedly gave up his $10 billion suit against the IRS for a contractor leaking his tax returns. In return, Trump’s acting Attorney General barred the IRS from looking at any of the tax returns Trump or his immediate family have filed.

First, Trump’s lawsuit was flawed and he likely wouldn’t have gotten much more than an apology. The prohibition against auditing any of the current Trump returns is unprecedented.

To provide context, Trump has promised for ten years to release his tax returns and reneged. And a 1998 law specifically prohibits the president from interfering or any involvement with IRS actions.

Thanks to John Roberts, Trump will say this is official business, so let’s deep six that statute.

Then the President and his go along acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tried to falsely connect this to launching a $1.78 billion slush fund to be doled out to anyone supposedly “weaponized” by the previous Administration. This includes criminals who beat up the police on January 6.

Defenders of the slush fund, to be answerable to Trump, have drawn parallels to other funds, including the September 11 victims fund.

The September 11 fund was approved by Congress, administered with rules and hearings across the country by an eminent expert, Ken Feinberg. The recipients were deserving and enjoyed widespread public support. None of that is the case with this slush fund.

Still, Trump almost never backs down from a lie, he doubles down, another reason he gets away with it. In the style of his mentor Roy Cohn (or the Nazi and Soviet propagandists), he revels in big lies which strangely can be harder to knock down. Millions and millions of Americans today believe the certifiable lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Another factor, of course, is a Justice Department who sees its mandate to serve Trump who calls the shots. Congressional Republicans, fearful of incurring Trump’s wrath, have abdicated much of their responsibility.

Some of it is even in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom with separation of powers and guardrails, didn’t sufficiently appreciate the possibility of a president who had no regard for the rule of law.

Politically, it’s catching up. In recent polls, half or more of Americans say the president is corrupt. As well as the cost of living and an ill-considered war, corruption will be a winning issue for Democratic candidates this fall.

Over the longer run this is not easily correctable. Michael Waldman suggests a constitutional amendment to end the ability of an unchecked president to issue corrupt pardons. The 14th Amendment, he notes, was a powerful antidote to the Supreme Court’s racist Dred Scott decision.

But it took a Civil War in between.