Cashing in
More about Trump’s nice little earner: spending most weekends at one of his clubs or resorts and pocketing the $$$ spent by all the government people who have to go with him.
Defense Department employees charged just over $138,000 at Trump branded properties in the first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a CNN review of hundreds of records.
Charges on the department-issued Visa cards, which span from Honolulu to Washington, DC, are the most recent evidence that taxpayer money flows to Trump’s company, once again emboldening critics who say these payments violate ethical norms and possibly the US Constitution.
The CNN analysis found military personnel spent more than a third of the total amount, or $58,875.69, on lodging and food at what appears to be Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Most of the expenses generally align with the 25 days the President spent at his Florida club from February to April.
No wonder he likes to go so often: lots more $$$ for him. Paid for by us.
Some watchdog groups, former government ethics officials and Democrats say the President’s businesses shouldn’t accept any taxpayer dollars. They argue it fosters corruption because government officials could frequent Trump’s hotels and golf courses to gain the President’s favor.
The former head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, told CNN that, during his time in office, he made “very specific recommendations” the President stop visiting properties owned by his company and announce White House officials would not visit those properties.
“You see him holding financial interests — that leaves us unable to know whether decisions are motivated by policy aims or by personal financial interests,” Shaub said.
The totals are still chump-change in comparison to the gross worth at least of the billionaire’s club that is the Trump Administration. To me, this indicates that they’re not even doing this corruption as a way to make money – it’s a matter of sheer sense of entitlement; of being above any repercussion for obvious, blatant criminality; and of rubbing in the difference between them – the winners – and any serious, professional, ethical civil servant, elected, appointed, or career.
They’re an aristocracy, a privileged hereditary class, and they want to make that perfectly clear to anyone with any lingering sense that this is a nation committed to equality or the rule of law.
Jeff Engel
I’m not American, so this is an outsider’s view. Members of the Trump family seem to be complete phillistines. I’m not convinced that Trump and his clan are consciously assuming some kind of plutocratic privilege. More plausibly, they have absolutely no idea of the ethical standards required by the office of US president.
RJW,
I would amend that to “have absolutely no idea of ethical standards” period.
I don’t mean that just as a snide insult of their morals. I really think that they come from a perspective that there are two kinds of people in the world: (1) those who squeeze every dime they can get out of any power they hold; and (2) suckers.
Like, when you’re a real estate developer, of course you extract favors from the politicians for whom you’ve raised funds. That was the entire point. If you actually become one of those politicians, then of course you extract money from people who need political favors from you. Otherwise, what was the point? The entire campaign began as a grift operation, hoping to sell more Trump merchandise and TV shows. They figured they’d lose and then start a media empire that would make tons of money off of aggrieved white voters. Now he’s stuck with the job, so he’s sure as hell going to extract every penny he can along the way.
Screechy, I think you’re right on, and I also think that they can’t actually hear the ethics lawyers when they say something different. They don’t understand a point of view that might limit the amount of money you can make, because they see making money as the most noble pursuit of human kind, and feel that those who have some other idea about what is noble, say kindness and compassion as an example, are people who have been hoodwinked by evil leftists into some sort of conspiracy to take Trump’s money away.
Trump may or may not have a concept of God and religion, but he appears to have drunk prosperity gospel to the last drop (something I doubt he’s actually heard of): his idea would be that the rich are the good people, and the proof of that is the fact of their being rich. The strong are the good people, and the proof of that is the fact of their being strong. The powerful are the good people, and the proof of that is the fact of their being powerful (though occasionally he makes an exception for people who usurp power illegitimately, such as Obama, because, honestly, how could Obama be among the good and therefore naturally powerful when he is not white?).