President Donald Trump and his circle are engaged in a "looting of America" so thorough and on so many fronts that the journalists and watchdogs generally tasked with keeping the presidency honest can't hope to keep up with it all, Ed Pilkington wrote in an analysis for The Guardian published Monday.
There have been a number of high-profile cases, including Trump's dinner sweepstakes for those who purchase his branded meme cryptocurrency, his promotion of Tesla on the White House lawn as tech billionaire Elon Musk advised his administration, and his solicitation and acceptance of a $400 billion luxury jumbo jet from the Qatari government, the report noted.
In many ways, it's a repeat of his first term, when foreign officials spent lavishly at his hotel to curry favor, and the Secret Service shelled out to rent his golf carts.
However, Pilkington continued, "There has been so much more that has flown, if not under the radar, then partially obscured from sight amid the ethical blizzard of corruption and influence." For instance, "There have been multimillion-dollar TV packages, real estate deals in Arab petrostates, dinners with the president going for $5m a pop, plum job offers for contributors to Trump’s inaugural fund, cryptocurrency ventures attracting lucre from secret foreign investors, 'drill, baby, drill' enticements for oil and energy donations – the list goes on, and on … and on."
Washington University ethics professor Kathleen Clark told The Guardian she fears the Trump administration has “mastered the technique of flooding the zone – doing so much so fast that they are overwhelming the ability of ethics groups and institutions to respond.”
Brookings Institution scholar Norm Eisen, meanwhile, said, “It’s over the line, unlawful, corrupt and unethical. It is un-American.”
A White House spokesperson denied any of this was a problem.
“There are no conflicts of interest. President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. It is shameful that the Guardian is ignoring the GOOD deals President Trump has secured for the American people, not for himself, to push a false narrative. President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” the spokesperson said.
However, noted the report, Trump's assets being managed by his children, who financially benefit from their relationship with him, isn't a meaningful defense of Trump's ethical arrangements.
And these side deals could have tragic consequences for Americans, said Evan Feinman, who has for years been leading a federal effort to expand high-speed fiber optic internet service to rural areas — a project scaled back as soon as Trump took office as it competes with Musk's Starlink satellite internet service, which can cover these same areas but with slower and more expensive service.
“For Americans in rural locations, that’s going to really hurt," he said. "Many of the president’s strongest supporters – up to hundreds of thousands of families who voted for Trump – are going to see slower, more expensive internet services, and all to the benefit of the wealthiest man on earth."
