Trump's Corruption Is Brazen, Obvious, and Costly. Will Enough Republicans Try To Stop Him?

“While addressing a crowd of manufacturing workers in Missouri this week, Vice President J.D. Vance detailed how his staff is tirelessly working to root out fraud in the federal government. "There is a simple principle that I have, which is: If you are committing fraud against the American people, you should go to prison," Vance said. After waiting for the cheers to die down, he continued, "If you are a public official, and you are not fighting against fraud, you ought to have your money taken away, because [officials] should not be able to steal from all of you." Yes, if there is one thing the Trump administration simply will not tolerate, it is the theft of public money or government officials getting rich off such fraud. But, wow, that sure seems to be happening a lot these days. On the same day that Vance was speaking, the White House and the federal Department of Justice put the finishing touches on an agreement that will transfer nearly $1.8 billion from American taxpayers to President Donald Trump. Officially, the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" will provide payments to "redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare." In reality, this is a massive taxpayer-funded slush fund that Trump will be able to distribute to his friends and allies—including those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. The fund will be controlled by a five-member board , with all five appointed by the attorney general and removable by the president at any time without cause. This should be one of the biggest scandals in presidential history. Trump sued himself, then agreed to settle the lawsuit with an amount of taxpayer money that his lawyers determined. It's so brazenly corrupt that it feels absurd. Plenty of politicians engage in self-dealing, but you'd have a hard time finding an example of one who grabbed the cookie jar so directly and stuck his hand inside, in full view of the public. "The entire affair reeks of corruption," wrote Reason 's Joe Lancaster earlier this week. In this administration, that stench is becoming overwhelming. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is merely the most blatant example (so far) of Trump's corruption, but it is just one part of a cavalcade that's happening right in front of everyone's faces. Government records show that Trump bought and sold millions of dollars in stock in companies that contract with or are regulated by the federal government, as first reported last week by investigative outfit Sludge . Disclosures filed earlier this month with the Office of Government Ethics show that Trump made more than 3,600 stock trades during the first three months of the year. A few really stand out. Trump bought stock in the tech company Palantir just before it inked a massive government contract . He also bought $680,000 worth of stock in Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. "The timing of Trump's purchases coincides with several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker's GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare, the government health insurance program primarily serving seniors, when they are prescribed for weight loss," reported KFF Health News . The White House has denied that there is any conflict of interest in those decisions, but the potential for one seems obvious. And, like with Vance's comments this week, the gulf between what the administration says and does is vast. During the State of the Union address in February, Trump called for a ban on members of Congress trading stocks. Conservatives have complained for years about former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and other high-ranking officials using their positions and insider information to enrich themselves. Instead of draining that swamp, Trump is now engaged in the same behavior. Then, there are the foreign entanglements, many of which seem to involve Trump's children and their spouses. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, is one of the administration's top negotiators in the Middle East. He also runs a private equity firm that accepted a $2 billion investment from the government of Saudi Arabia in 2024, and he's reportedly been soliciting other investments while negotiating an end to the war with Iran. The Gulf States, in particular, are threatened by a long-term war, which could further destroy their oil and gas infrastructure. How much would they be willing to pay Trump's family to make the war go away sooner rather than later? This is gangster-type stuff masquerading as diplomacy. Meanwhile, Trump's sons have reportedly been given a stake in a Kazakh mining company that recently won a $1.6 billion contract from the administration. Separately, the U.S. Air Force has agreed to buy drones from a company partially owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. And the hypocrisy is rank. Republicans drew up articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden because of the corrupt links between his son, Hunter Biden, and a Ukrainian oil company. Now, the Trump administration is seemingly mocking the Bidens for not thinking big enough. Asked in January about his family making money on business deals while he's president, Trump told The New York Times that "nobody cared" when he limited such behavior during his first term. "I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it," he said. "I didn't have to do that. And it's really unfair to them." "The president is profiting off the office and making foreign policy decisions based on business interests to a level we've never seen or even conceived of before, and apparently nothing is being done to stop it," wrote journalist Isaac Saul in an exhaustive, 6,000-word essay at Tangle earlier this month. What can be done? For starters, administration officials should follow the example of Treasury Department general counsel Brian Morrissey, who resigned this week, apparently in response to the creation of the $1.8 billion slush fund. The "Anti-Weaponization fund" is so egregious that it might actually get some Republicans in Congress to rediscover their spines. "We're gonna try to kill it," said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R–Pa.) when asked about the fund. "You can't do that." "We are a nation of laws, you can't just make up things whole-piece," Sen. John Cassidy (R–La.), who lost a primary election earlier this month, told The Hill. "It is as if somebody sued themselves and agreed upon a settlement with themselves that's going to be funded by the rest of us. If that's the case: What?!" The ultimate remedy to this pattern of behavior is impeachment . That power was given to Congress for specifically this type of misconduct, so that lawmakers could address "the abuse of violation of some public trust," as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 65. Outright public corruption is a problem on its own terms, of course. It means fewer tax dollars are available for public services, and causes capital investments to be misallocated because of cronyist considerations. It also undermines the norms and institutions that are supposed to prevent corruption—and, thus, encourages more of it. Sure, roll your eyes at the "norms" all you want, but there doesn't appear to be any law or rules that prevent a president from suing his own Justice Department and then settling the lawsuit and pocketing a ton of taxpayers' money. Dozens of other men have held the presidency without doing that. Now that one has, it becomes easier for the next to do it too. This is a slide that must be stopped before it gets worse. Conservatives who hand-wave Trump's corruption with whataboutism, focused on Biden or Hillary Clinton or anyone else, are doing the opposite of that. Ignoring Trump's corruption will invite more and worse from him and others. And the next time Vance talks about how this administration is focused on reducing fraud in government, he should be booed and laughed off stage. The post Trump's Corruption Is Brazen, Obvious, and Costly. Will Enough Republicans Try To Stop Him? appeared first on Reason.com .

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