Donald Trump is now reveling in his lawlessness

Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House.

Just as many political analysts never really internalized the disconnect between Trump's approval rating and the state of the economy before it crashed, they don't appear to understand that a modest backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement among white people isn't sending them into Trump's arms. At least not so far.

As I've written in the past, Trump's brand is chaos--his supporters actually like that he stirs shit up--and that's a big reason why he's struggling to gain traction with his law and order message. Unlike the staid, boring Richard Nixon, Trump is the last person people would see as a steadying rock in a sea of supposed turmoil.

But it may also be that he's no better positioned to sell himself as a candidate who will uphold the law than he is a guy who will provide stability and order. He heads a lawless regime that isn't trying to hide it. In fact, Trump is reveling in it. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Trump’s aides said he enjoyed the frustration and anger he caused by holding a political event on the South Lawn of the White House, shattering conventional norms and raising questions about ethics law violations. He relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him," according to the report.

The Times is, in its typical fashion, under-selling the degree of criminality involved. While Donald Trump and Mike Pence are exempt from a 1939 anti-corruption law that bars federal employees from using taxpayer resources for partisan politics, The Washington Postreports that throughout the federal government, officials "have faced warning letters, reprimands, suspensions without pay and, in extreme cases, been fired and debarred from returning to government" for far less blatant violations of the law than what Trump forced dozens of his own people to commit.

This is all the predictable result of House Democrats declining to pursue impeachment when Special Counsel Robert Mueller found almost a dozen clear-cut acts of obstruction justice, and  Senate Republicans acquitting him when Democrats did impeach him for just as clear-cut attempts to bribe a foreign government to intervene in the 2020 election.

The problem is compounded by a political press that is often eager to portray things as normal.

So we have a system that makes it extraordinarily difficult for Congress to hold the executive accountable, and a Fourth Estate that doesn't see that as its proper function.

Impunity always breeds more crime, and Trump knows that he's effectively above the law for the duration of his presidency. And he's loving it,

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Speaking of lawlessness...

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WaPo: "Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis."

All that travel--and mingling with people who believe wearing a mask is tyranny--is getting Secret Service agents sick in droves.

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Speaking of corruption--but the legal kind, probably--Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former Chief of Staff and current Envoy to Northern Ireland, is starting a hedge fund that will focus on "buying stock in banks and other financial firms based on his knowledge of financial regulation," according to Politico. If he relies on any non-public information, that would of course be a crime.

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We've covered a lot of Trump appointees who are really out there, but a former official in charge of diplomatic protocol,  Sean Lawler, may take the cake.