{"id":165928,"date":"2025-09-27T13:42:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T13:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-is-brazenly-flaunting-his-corruption-and-getting-away-with-it-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T13:42:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T13:42:22","slug":"trump-is-brazenly-flaunting-his-corruption-and-getting-away-with-it-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-is-brazenly-flaunting-his-corruption-and-getting-away-with-it-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump is brazenly flaunting his corruption \u2013 and getting away with it – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

President has shouted from rooftops what his predecessors would have tried to cover up for fear of ending their careers
A<\/span>s the Watergate scandal<\/a> unfolded, new editions of the Washington Post newspaper were rushed over to the White House at night so Richard Nixon, the president, could brace for each devastating revelation.
Half a century later, Donald Trump<\/a> does not seem to fear explosive front page headlines or shocking disclosures of malfeasance. Usually because he has written them himself.
The US president\u2019s determination to break from his predecessors includes a willingness to shout from the rooftops of misconduct past presidents would have strained every sinew to conceal.
And the consequence, observers say, is that Trump\u2019s brazen approach earns him perverse credit for authenticity and takes the sting out of scandals that used to be career-ending when uncovered by muckraking journalists.
\u201cThis is a dangerous notion that, just because a president chooses to be corrupt in public openly, it\u2019s OK,\u201d said Larry Sabato<\/a>, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. \u201cPeople say, well, if it were really corrupt, it would be hidden. It\u2019s a false assumption, but many people have it. It\u2019s a new theory of scandal.\u201d
Trump delivered one of his most blatant examples last weekend. In a social media post addressed directly to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, the president fumed<\/a> over the lack of legal action against James Comey, the former FBI director, Adam Schiff, the California senator, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t delay any longer, it\u2019s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW,\u201d he wrote, before deleting the message and posting another supportive of Bondi.
It was a glaringly obvious effort to order the justice department to take action against his political opponents. On Thursday the agency followed through by charging Comey with false statements and obstruction over congressional testimony about the investigation into contacts between Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Democrats described it as \u201ca disgraceful attack on the rule of law\u201d, the latest in a series of moves that have threatened the justice department\u2019s traditional independence. But Republicans, who five decades ago forced Nixon to resign over the Watergate<\/a> burglary and ensuing cover-up, were mostly silent. There was no hint of impeaching Trump over what many saw as an impeachable offence.
Richard Painter<\/a>, a former chief White House ethics lawyer, said: \u201cIt\u2019s what prosecutors do in dictatorships. They want to run up this Comey thing that has no merit to it. That\u2019s what they do in Russia. You piss off Putin and end up in some gulag somewhere. That\u2019s not, I thought, how we want to run our country.\u201d
If Trump\u2019s shamelessness is one superpower, his ability to flood the zone is another. He has spent the past decade proving the thesis that while one crisis can topple a politician, a hundred crises are subject to the law of diminishing returns. \u201cIt\u2019s Watergate, Every Day,\u201d read a headline<\/a> on the Bulwark website this week.
In a 2005 conversation captured on an Access Hollywood tape<\/a> released in 2016, he described his approach to women: \u201cI just start kissing them … And when you\u2019re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab \u2018em by the pussy.\u201d
He has urged foreign governments to investigate political opponents. During a 2016 campaign rally, Trump said, \u201cRussia, if you\u2019re listening, I hope you\u2019re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,\u201d referring to rival Hillary Clinton\u2019s deleted emails. In 2019 he publicly called on China<\/a> to target Joe Biden, saying: \u201cChina should start an investigation into the Bidens.\u201d
In a 2017 NBC News interview, Trump openly stated that he fired Comey because of \u201cthis Russia thing\u201d, referring to an investigation into Russian election interference. This admission was cited in special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s report as potential evidence of obstruction of justice, yet Trump framed it as a decisive action rather than wrongdoing.
Trump expressed no contrition over the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 but rather persisted with his false claim of a stolen election, hailed the rioters as patriots and issued a blanket pardon<\/a> of them on his first day back in office.
In May this year, the president said he will accept a $400m luxury plane from Qatar<\/a> and use it as Air Force One, defending the arrangement as a \u201cgesture of good faith\u201d despite concerns that it could violate the US constitution\u2019s emoluments clause. The Trump Organization, run by the president\u2019s two oldest sons, struck a series of lucrative deals in the Middle East.
The breaches have come so thick and fast that they have become unremarkable to a numbed, desensitised audience. Sabato commented: \u201cIt becomes background noise. If there\u2019s bad news about a particular person or category of public policy then it\u2019s less significant because you expect it. What\u2019s Trump done today? Then you shrug your shoulders and have your third cup of coffee.\u201d
Kurt Bardella<\/a>, a political commentator, agrees that \u201cTrump being Trump\u201d no longer has shock value, especially since he previewed many of his actions during the election campaign. \u201cIt\u2019s normalised versus when someone acts completely out of character: \u2018Whoa, where did that come from? I never would have expected that person to act this way.\u2019\u201d
The lightning-paced news cycle makes it easy for Trump to move on from the scandal du jour, Bardella adds. \u201cWatergate was so powerful, [Monica] Lewinsky<\/a> was so powerful because it was a singular focus for an extended period of time. Now we consider a long news cycle something that lasts actually an entire week, whereas before a week was a blip on the radar.\u201d
Even so, Trump has faced a barrage of lawsuits, ethical complaints and demands for investigations. But Republicans control both chambers of Congress and have shown little appetite for imposing accountability. He has spent a decade purging critics from the party and reshaping it in his own image.
Wendy Schiller,<\/a> a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: \u201cThe institutional structures that should be countervailing, that should be pushing up against this and saying: \u2018Oh, this is terrible, he\u2019s breaking the law\u2019, are completely absent. They\u2019ve been co-opted or taken over by the Republican party or the conservative supreme court.
\u201cThere isn\u2019t a counter voice to say to the American people this is not acceptable behaviour. I don\u2019t think Trump gets credit for flooding the zone or that his strategy is particularly remarkable. It\u2019s that he has neutered the Congress and bought off the supreme court. There isn\u2019t anybody, literally, who can stop him.\u201d
Trump\u2019s boasting about conduct that others would hide also strikes a particular chord with his Make America great again (Maga) support base. In an October 2016 presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton accused him of avoiding taxes for years, Trump responded defiantly: \u201cThat makes me smart.\u201d
In a subsequent episode of Saturday Night Live, the comedian Dave Chappelle argued that such moments humanised Trump: his blunt admission of gaming a rigged system made him relatable, not elitist. Chappelle said<\/a>: \u201cThe reason he\u2019s loved is because people in Ohio have never seen somebody like him. He\u2019s what I call an honest liar.\u201d
Years later, that still holds with the Maga faithful. John Zogby<\/a>, an author and pollster, observed: \u201cFor voters who want to rage against the machine, instead of being elected president and head of the machine, he\u2019s the guy who feels he\u2019s been put in place to both enforce and live the rage against the machine.
\u201cThe very fact that he breaks all the rules so brazenly \u2013 takes foreign trips and makes personal business deals \u2013 adds to the appeal. He\u2019s the baddest cowboy in town. He does and says what a lot of people wish that they could do and say and he gets away with it. With Donald Trump, the one piece of authenticity is he is exactly what he says he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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