The Commentariat -- May 20, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday said he'll ask [Mrs. McC: actually, demand or order] the Justice Department on Monday to investigate whether the FBI surveilled his campaign. 'I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrate or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!' Trump tweeted." Mrs. McC: Trump, as usual, ignores the arm's-length distance between the president & DOJ that "normal" presidents respect, & it is even worse here in that he is attempting to order the DOJ to interfere with an investigation into his own possible criminal actions.
Alan Rappeport & Noah Weiland of the New York Times: "The United States has put on hold its plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese products as it presses forward with negotiations to reduce its trade deficit with Beijing, a top priority of President Trump. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said on Sunday that the two countries had made progress as they concluded two days of intense trade negotiations in Washington late last week. The planned tariffs -- on Chinese steel and aluminum, as well as $150 billion worth of other Chinese goods -- are off the table while the talks proceed, he said."
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out Sunday at 'the World's most expensive Witch Hunt,' trashing a new report in the New York Times that said an emissary representing the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered help to Trump's 2016 campaign. In a six-part morning tweetstorm, Trump accused the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election of turning to other leads around the world after, in his words, finding no collusion or obstruction of justice in its ongoing probe.... In his tweets, Trump asserted, without evidence, that investigations into his campaign's connections with Russia have cost taxpayers nearly $20 million and suggested that it is a politically motivated effort to undermine his presidency. The president said Democrats were in charge of the probe, even though Mueller, a Republican, was appointed head of the FBI by President George W. Bush, a Republican, in 2001." ...
... Here are Trump's tweets, in the order released: (1) If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal. Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp! (2) Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World's most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World! (3) ....At what point does this soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP! They have found no Collussion with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren't looking at the corruption... (4) ...in the Hillary Clinton Campaign where she deleted 33,000 Emails, got $145,000,000 while Secretary of State, paid McCabes wife $700,000 (and got off the FBI hook along with Terry M) and so much more. Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam. (5) Now that the Witch Hunt has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the World, they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party. Don't worry about Dems FISA Abuse, missing Emails or Fraudulent Dossier! (6) What ever happened to the Server, at the center of so much Corruption, that the Democratic National Committee REFUSED to hand over to the hard charging (except in the case of Democrats) FBI? They broke into homes & offices early in the morning, but were afraid to take the Server? (7) ....and why hasn't the Podesta brother been charged and arrested, like others, after being forced to close down his very large and successful firm? Is it because he is a VERY well connected Democrat working in the Swamp of Washington, D.C.? ...
... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said on Sunday that he doesn't understand why President Trump doesn't realize that it's illegal for a foreign nation [to] interfere in U.S. elections.... While he said he wasn't sure if the Times report was completely accurate, Warner ... told CNN the U.S. knew that Russia had interfered in the election 'to not only sow disarray but to help Trump and hurt Clinton.'"
... Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "Over the course of the Mueller investigation the ties between the administration and Qatar seem to have been multiplying by the day.... Now, a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing shows that [Michael] Cohen's lawyer, Stephen Ryan, also lobbied last year for the State of Qatar and its ambassador [Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad] Al Thani." --safari
Brad Reed of RawStory: "Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold on Friday raised questions about a mysterious surge in revenue that occurred over the past year at two of President Donald Trump's overseas golf courses. Writing on Twitter, Fahrenthold uses some recent financial disclosures from the Trump Organization to show that revenue at a Trump golf course in Ireland rose by 51 percent year-over-year from 2017 to 2018, while revenue at a Scottish Trump golf course surged by 87 percent year-over-year from 2017 to 2018.... It's important that these two courses saw substantial increases, Fahrenthold writes, because many of Trump's US-based golf courses and hotels saw year-over-year decreases in revenue from 2017 to 2018." --safari
Blame It on Ritalin & Abortion. Frances Sellers & Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "Two days after a 17-year-old opened fire in his Texas high school, killing at least 10, incoming National Rifle Association president Oliver North said students 'shouldn't have to be afraid' to go to school and blamed the problem on 'youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence' in which many young boys have 'been on Ritalin' since early childhood. 'They've been drugged in many cases,' he said.... Texas Lt Gov. Dan Patrick (R) blamed the social acceptance of abortion and violent video games for the epidemic of school gun violence." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Patrick may see Cecile Richards, who is retiring from Planned Parenthood & whose mother was governor of Texas, as a potential rival for Texas' top job. So abortion.
Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "All 34 of Chile's Catholic bishops have submitted their written resignations to the Vatican in the latest fallout from a major child sex abuse scandal rocking the South American nation. The unprecedented move puts the bishops' fate in the hands of Pope Francis, who can either accept the resignations or reject them.... The heinous nature of the accusations in Chile contributed to the Vatican's decision to conduct a full-scale investigation of dioceses, seminaries, and religious orders in the South American nation." --safari
*****
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It turns out there is a cost to Reality Chex, but of course it's easy to shoplift here, & I'll never be the wiser. The price is this: I'd like you to read Josh Barro's column. I've never said or written nearly as well what he writes. Thanks to those who pay at the door:
... ** Josh Barro of Business Insider: "Here's one reason the Trump corruption scandals aren't connecting as much as they should: Before Democrats spent the past 18 months telling everyone this is not normal, they spent years reassuring voters that this was normal. Well, not precisely this. But the general this: politicians having extensive financial conflicts of interest. Democrats told voters that taking high-dollar speaking fees right before you run for president from the industries you might regulate should you become president was just something everybody does. They said it was unsophisticated to worry if entities related to you had been fundraising from countries with foreign-policy interests before the US. They said nobody would object if a man did these things. They said you should look past the finances and understand that the Clintons shared your values and had your best interests at heart. Of course, the Clintons' behavior was never normal. They had the second-deepest set of financial conflicts of interest we've seen in a national political operation in my lifetime -- second only to Trumpworld.... More than any other individuals, Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for creating the impression of inevitable corruption that Trump has exploited to get his supporters to shrug off his own corruption."
The Trump International Corruption Program -- Middle East Unit:
** Junior, Busted Again. Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr.... One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor. The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months -- past the election and well into President Trump's first year in office.... Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, [headed a company] which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media.... Donald Trump Jr. responded approvingly..., and after those initial offers of help, Mr. Nader was quickly embraced as a close ally by Trump campaign advisers -- meeting frequently with Jared Kushner ... and Michael T. Flynn.... After Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Nader paid Mr. Zamel a large sum of money, described by one associate as up to $2 million. There are conflicting accounts of the reason for the payment.... The meetings, which have not been reported previously, are the first indication that countries other than Russia may have offered assistance to the Trump campaign...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: How come the Saudis didn't give Junior & Jared shiny gold medals, too?
... Marcy Wheeler: "Today's NYT scoop revealing that the Trump campaign colluded not just with Russians, but also Saudis, Emirates, and Israelis explain why the discovery of the later meetings was so dangerous: because it would reveal other efforts Trump made to sell out American foreign policy." Mrs. McC: Wheeler ties the meeting to Devin Nunes' "unmasking" hoo-hah in a way that is somewhat opaque to me. ...
... Emily Stewart of Vox: "There are multiple reasons the report matters. It indicates that it wasn't just Russia that was offering to help the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election. It also raises questions about what sort of repayment the Middle East countries in question might have received for their help. And it demonstrates the Trump campaign's reckless -- if not nefarious -- attitude toward campaign laws in the United States.... During the 2016 campaign, [George] Nader visited Moscow at least twice as a confidential emissary from Crown Prince Mohammed of Abu Dhabi, and he helped to arrange a meeting in the Seychelles between [Erik] Prince and a Russian businessman close to Vladimir Putin that [Robert] Mueller has also been probing. Companies tied to Zamel have connections to Russia as well." ...
... The Prince & the Perjury. Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "... on November 30, 2017, [Erik Prince] told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, under oath, that he had no formal communication or contact with the Trump campaign, other than occasionally sending 'papers' on foreign policy matters to Steve Bannon.... 'So there was no formal communication or contact with the campaign?' Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) asked Prince during his interview by the Intelligence Committee. 'Correct,' Prince responded.... Prince also told the committee that he met Trump Jr. 'at a campaign event,' and at Trump Tower 'during the transition.' He did not mention the meeting with Trump Jr. and [George] Nader.... Prince [also told the Committee] a meeting he attended in Seychelles during the presidential transition with a Russian financier close to Vladimir Putin was an unplanned encounter. Nader, who is cooperating with [Robert] Mueller, has told investigators that he arranged for Prince to travel to the Seychelles to meet Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of a Russian sovereign wealth fund, after giving Prince information about Dmitriev, according to ABC."
** Quinta Jurecic & Benjamin Wittes of Lawfire: "It wasn't that long ago that both the executive branch and the legislature in this country considered the protection of intelligence sources a matter of surpassing national importance.... In 1982 by passing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which criminalized the knowing and intentional outing of U.S. covert operatives and intelligence sources whom the government is taking active steps to protect.... What happens when the Chairman of the House intelligence committee and the President of the United States team up to out an FBI informant over the strenuous objection of the bureau and the Department of Justice -- and manage to get the job done?... Donald Trump did not leak the name of an intelligence source, and the record is not at all clear that Devin Nunes or his staff did so either. But the record is entirely clear that both men behaved in a way that actively contributed to the outing of an informant.... Trump's tweets on Friday made it impossible for the press to continue holding back what they had...." Read it all. ...
... ** AND, for an opposing -- and fascinating -- view, do read Glenn Greenwald, who also names the informant: "Four decades ago, [this same informant] was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign -- using CIA officials managed by [the informant], reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush -- got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved& CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.... Whatever else is true, the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election. For that reason, it's easy to understand why many people in Washington were so desperate to conceal his identity, but that desperation had nothing to do with the lofty and noble concerns for national security they claimed were motivating them."
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I find it difficult to take seriously any adult who refers to himself as Lucian K. Truscott IV, but IV's essay in Salon seems to echo my own sentiments (which, naturally, makes me question my own sentiments): "What more do you need to know? [Donald Trump is] a lying, thieving, incompetent, ignorant traitor who conspired with the Russian government to steal the election of 2016 and illegally defeat a candidate who won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. His presidency is illegitimate, and his occupation of the White House is a stain on our nation's honor and a threat to our democracy. History will cast him into the same sewer in which float the putrid remains of Benedict Arnold, Jefferson Davis and Richard Nixon. Impeachment would be too kind an end for him. He belongs behind bars, broken, bankrupt and disgraced."
Melania Trump Hospitalized 5 Days for Name Change. AP: Melania Trump returned to the White House on Saturday from a week-long hospitalization after treatment for a kidney condition, a lengthy stay that raised questions about whether the first lady's condition may have been more complicated than initially revealed. Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, has declined to release additional details, citing Trump's right to privacy. Donald Trump heralded his wife's arrival home with a tweet in which her name was spelled incorrectly. 'Great to have our incredible First Lady back home in the White House.'" ...
... Mrs. McC: Sarah Sanders released a statement explaining that Mrs. Trump required a long hospitalization because the name change was "extremely painful." But the President*, Sanders said, "in keeping with his dedication to a strictly 'America First' policy, obviously was right to require his wife to have a more American name." Sanders did not remark that the President*'s family had changed its own surname from "Drumpf" to "Trump."
Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "China will increase its purchase of American goods and services in order to reduce the multibillion-dollar trade imbalance with the United States, the two countries said in a joint statement Saturday. How much the imbalance will be reduced remains to be seen.... The White House said that China had committed to buying more agriculture and energy exports, but noted that American officials would at some point go to China to work out the details of their agreement.... The announcement Saturday made no reference to whether the Trump administration would walk away from tariffs imposed this year on roughly $50 billion of Chinese imports. But Liu He, an economic adviser who led the negotiations for China, suggested that both sides would stop recently imposed tariffs, according to China's Xinhua News Agency."
Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "A personalized visit to Joshua Tree National Park. A spin through the West Wing, guided by White House staffers. And a trip to the top of the Lincoln Memorial, which is closed to the public. Such VIP tours of National Park Service sites, some at the height of the tourist season, came at the request of either Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke or his wife, Lola, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Several excursions were scheduled specifically for friends and acquaintances. Under both Democratic and Republican presidents, top Interior officials have long given lawmakers and White House officials tours of Park Service sites and other courtesies at the agency's disposal. Several Obama administration officials -- including Vice President Joe Biden -- stayed for free at the Brinkerhoff Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, only to reimburse the government later when their visits came under fire after a FOIA disclosure." Among the recipients of these VIP tours: "friends from England" & Lola's boat broker.
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against Fox News filed by a former on-air host, Andrea Tantaros, who had alleged that the network retaliated against her after she complained about being sexually harassed.... On Friday, however, Judge George B. Daniels of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote that Ms. Tantaros's allegations were 'based primarily on speculation and conjecture.' In dismissing the suit, the judge noted that Ms. Tantaros 'fails to adequately make out the basic elements of her claims.'" Mrs. McC: Well, that fits. Tantaros' entire political commentary was "based primarily on speculation and conjecture." That is of course Fox "News"' fundamental modus operandi, but apparently Fox attorneys know it doesn't work so well in court.
Martin Cizmar of the Raw Story: "Starbucks is reacting to a run of bad publicity that started with racist employees calling the cops on two black men in Philadelphia by making radical changes to its policies. Now, every location of Starbucks will be open to anyone who wants to hang out, reports the Wall Street Journal. Also, anyone who needs to use a restroom will be able to do so."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Maureen Brigid Dowd: Ireland "is in the midst of an excruciating existential battle over whether it should keep its adamantine abortion statute, giving an unborn baby equal rights with the mother. Under the Eighth Amendment, abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. The only exception is when it is believed that the mother will die. Anyone caught buying pills online to induce a miscarriage faces up to 14 years in prison. The Eighth Amendment was added in 1983 to the Irish Constitution, a document drawn up in 1937 that was so steeped in Catholic principle, it was submitted to the Vatican for review. Ireland's prime minister, Leo Varadkar, and other opponents of the amendment want to repeal it and craft a new law that gives women and doctors more options, perhaps allowing abortions for up to 12 weeks, and beyond in certain cases." Mrs. McC: When Dowd is good, she is very, very good. ...
... AND Ross Douthat is Ross Douthat, "obsessed with punishing women," to borrow a phrase from Niall Dowd, whom Dowd cites. Mrs. McC: Oh, forgive me, I forgot the link.
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Reader Comments (8)
Well, I obeyed––as a loyal R.C. reader/commenter should––and read the Josh Barro piece and yes, if I didn't know it was from Barro I might have thought it a Burn's. He's right of course, and it's uncomfortable to be reminded of the underbelly of the Clinton cabal but–––and it's a big BUT––I'll take Bill and Hillary's dodgy doings and bad moves over any of our recent past Republican presidents and the one we are dealing with now wins the sweepstakes of being the most corrupt.
If you need some laughs along with clever reporting read Anthony Lane's (side bar) take on when Harry wed Meagan ceremony. I hadn't intended to watch it but watch it I did and came away awash in God's love and wondered whether we were witnessing a royal wedding of two human beings since God, Jesus, and the Holy spirit (in my day it was Ghost, which I envisioned as a white cloud burst) were prominent throughout. The highlight of this service was the black bishop's very long (and Lane wanted it longer?) sermon given in a dramatic upsurging voice that ripped through that great chapel with all those white Brits in their spiffy hats and bespoke suits wondering what the hell hit them.
The music was glorious and the flowers were abundant and beautiful and for a moment we could believe in that love everlasting––for a moment at least. Hal-a-loo–ya!
OK. Bea. I paid at the door. The price was reasonable and the goods satisfactory, but I thought too highly touted, and didn't quite measure up to the hype. Yes, there was always an uncomfortable seaminess to the Clintons and its fair to blame them and their standard shredding for any number of things (let us not forget the 2000 election, which I've always blamed on Bill), but saying that a general willingness to accept corruption in high places all the Clintons' fault is too simple for my taste.
It's sometimes hard to know if corruption has become more common or if as I've aged or if I now just notice it more, kinda like the arguments about autism diagnoses. Why is there so much of it now? Is there actually more it or do we just more noticeable to us as youthful naivete wears off and the tools we have to detect it improve? I'd submit that in my more repressed youth, when the possibility of adultery was only whispered, when there were no illicit drugs, when priests did not assault little boys, when county commissioners accepted cases of Christmas whiskey, and when Presidents did not have mistresses, when all of those (what the world would have termed) nasty things that I never noticed must have been going on around me, corruption of all kinds was far more common than it seemed to me at the time.
Still, I have no doubt we have been taught to accept corruption throughout my lifetime. Whether there is more of it, or if it's just more evident, it's true it doesn't seem to rile us like it used to. Whatever we call it, a new-found sophistication or glorying in being part of the swamp ourselves, many teachers have worked to change our outlook so that now we do seem to tolerate much of what was once thought to be intolerable.
Lest this rant go on too long (I do feel lurking danger), I will list only a few of those teachers, none of which is the Clintons.
My favorite target would be the world of business and its handmaiden advertising. I've said it before, but business has taught us that ethics do not matter when profit and loss is at stake. What's a little exaggeration, what's a little lie, when there is money to be made? And as radio and tv moved into every household the shady practices of American business were served up with our meals to successive generations of Americans. Of course we expect and accept corruption.
That acceptance has even extended to our so-called justice system. Which perpetrator of the Bush Crash has gone to jail? None. No more punishment of person there than that meted out to the Wells Fargo criminals. It's the behavior we expect from business, so business now defines all the terms of reward and punishment. We don't send white collar criminals to jail. We just fine them a small portion of their ill-gotten gains and tell them not to sin again, and we don't even take it very seriously if they do.
Even our definitions of what is corrupt and what is not have changed.
Our courts have decided that not much is. Quid pro quo is a vanishing species and the Citizens United and related election law decisions said not to worry--outright bribery by both corporations and individuals is now just fine.
And then there's growing influence of lobbyists, our own Jabba the Hut of K Street, to which the vast majority of our politicians have had to swear fealty and whom they enlist to write the very legislation that is supposed to regulate them.
I'm still thinking about the growing prevalence of plagiarism (and by implication its acceptance) in our schools, lower and higher, but that also fits into the pattern.
Enough for now. Not quite a complete Sunday Sermon, but enough to suggest the swamp extends far beyond the boundaries of Washington, D.C. that it might well have covered a good part of the country for a very long time and that while the Clintons might have fit in too easily for our comfort, the mess we're in didn't begin with them.
Maybe they're just particularly disappointing because they were Democrats and as such were supposed to be better than that. We expected and hoped for more of then than we got, and they did let us down.
Finally, and maybe more positively, the Pretender did run an anti-corruption, drain the swamp campaign. Maybe no one believed him (I certainly didn't) but it must have polled well, and if it did, it suggests corruption is still not as accepted as it appears to be, and that even some of the bots might eventually recoil from the brazenness of their hero's in your face sleaze.
Both explicitly and implicitly covers some of the same ground about the history and techniques of our creeping corruption-- at great length, be warned, but with the advantage of allowing room, if not the time, for some argument. Overall, worth a read, I think.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/
@Ken: Best Sunday sermon ever! Yes, when we think of our salad days we now know that dark side of humanity was hidden from the lot of us; those victims of it, however, knew it well. The clay feet of human beings makes it difficult to achieve those great expectations that we are taught to expect. Even the impoverished children of these war torn countries when asked what they want to be when they grow up––doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers... seemingly unreachable goals for so many. Thus ambition is powerful and so is greed along with the kind of desire that can ruin a life and cause a whole country's demise.
The other day going through my files I came across this exchange between Donald Regen and Reagan from Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side". Regen, an Irishman who was living proof of Reagan's "American Dream"––starting out in life not on the wrong side of the tracks but "close enough to hear the whistle blow real loud, " rose to prominence by becoming the head of Merrill Lynch.
"Mr. President, he [ Regen] said with a twinkle in his eyes, "You might as well realize it. I got something these other guys haven't got. Jim Bakers got some of it. Meese doesn't have it, maybe never will. And Deaver will try and get it."
"What's that? asked Reagan, swallowing the bait."
"I've got 'fuck you' money, bragged the new chief of staff with a bluntness that kicked off a whole new era."
And our whole new era consists of the rich getting richer and the poor getting zilch but Reagan played a clean cut everyman and in politics he capitalized on a populist anti-establishment strain and delighted in using his past as a common denominator with the blue-collar Americans who swelled his constituency. Trump's swelling, by contrast, was by those that believed in a rich bully boy who could clean up the corruption (swamp)–-a real game changer that spoke, (they thought) their language. But over all it all comes down to that "fuck you" money, doesn't it? Who's got it, how to get it, how to use it, and how to fuck when you finally get it.
Another Sunday sermon, I fear, but it's raining out.
I'm sure the House and Senate Repugnants (most of them anyway; likely, there are exceptions) trying to derail the Russia investigation know better and are doing so only out of cynical disregard for anything but their own hold on power, but the latest Pretender tweets, which to me sound very much the rantings of a maniac, strongly suggest he may be so nuts he actually believes what he suggests.
More evidence of a man spinning out of control?
@Ken Winkes: Yes to all that, and it just got worst.
I wonder if we are underestimating the profound corruption of earlier presidents. For example, both Bushes, who were so financially connected to the Saudis that they not only profited from close (oil) business connections, but also turned a blind eye to national security issues, at least around 9/11. However poorly the Clintons have behaved, I think that most recent Republican leaders make them look like amateurs. I'm not aware that either traded national security for money or power, which I believe Republican presidents have done - another example is Nixon and the Paris Peace Talks. IMHO. Republican administrations have attracted overwhelming numbers of indictments and convictions.
@Gloria: Sure, Republicans are, on the whole, more corrupt than the Clintons. But the point is that the Clintons normalized Republican corruption; they thought & behaved as if corruption was okay for Democrats, too. The "Third Way" was about more than a middle-of-the-road approach to policy. It was also an adoption of GOP corrupt practices, albeit one properly dressed up in more noble motives. Sure, the Clintons take in billions at the Clinton Foundation, & too many of those donations are transactional, but, gosh darn, those Clintons do good works with the money. But everybody knew "Slick Willy" had a gimmick, and it turned out Hillary was ever so good with that.
It's no wonder that so many Democrats voted for Trump. He promised them the same things the Clintons did, & he didn't seem any worse -- maybe just a little more successful, a little more brash & certainly more unscripted. When people say, "Well, all politicians are corrupt," they only need point at Hillary's speaking hauls or Bill's riding around in jets with teenaged prostitutes (or at least with a guy convicted of multiples counts of the same). The Clintons went to Donald & Melania's wedding because "they thought it would be fun." Sure, because they were just smarter & better-connected versions of Donald. And they were perfectly comfortable milling with sleazebags like Trump because Trump wasn't any different from the sleazebags they were accustomed to hanging with.
The difference between the Clintons & that William Jefferson who kept his bribe money in the freezer is that there's not a big enough freezer to hold all the Clintons' money.
None of us is perfect, and politicians are, on the whole, probably less perfect than the rest of us. But there should be a political party that actually stands for ordinary people & not mostly for graft & self-aggrandizement.