Today on The BradCast: Congrats, America! Bribery, influence peddling, petty corruption, money laundering, fraud, conflicts of interest, even attempted cop-killing and much more is all, effectively, now legalized in these United States! At least if you’re on the right team. [Audio link to today’s show follows this summary.]
In his Inauguration speech, just three (looong) weeks ago, Donald Trump declared: “The golden age of America begins right now.” Apparently he meant the Golden Age of Corruption. For him. And his chosen pals.
But, first up today, a correction to one point from yesterday’s show (see the quick version of that correction at the bottom of yesterday’s show posting).
Then, we step quickly through a few crime-related turns for Trump and his cronies today alone. Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to one New York state felony charge related to a fraudulent scheme in which he helped steal millions from hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters to supposedly build a wall on the U.S. southern border during Trump’s first term. The plea agreement, if he behaves, will result in no jail time for Bannon who was previously charged [PDF] with related felony crimes at the federal level until preemptively pardoned for them by Trump on the last day of his first term. Repeat offender Bannon served four months in federal prison last year after being convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer subpoenas from the House January 6 Committee. After his sentencing today, he called on Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to weaponize the DoJ against New York prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Letitia James.
Today, Trump also gave a full pardon today to Illinois’ corrupt former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on felony charges related to trying to sell Barack Obama‘s U.S. Senate after he won the Presidency in 2008. Trump previously sprung Blago from his 14-year prison sentence with a commutation, six years early, during his first term.
Also today, Trump’s personal defense attorney turned Acting Deputy A.G. corruptly ordered the DoJ to drop all charges against NYC’s Democrat-ish Mayor Eric Adams on charges related to doing favors for Turkey in return for free airplane trips and hotel stays around the world.
Both Blago and Adams have each cozied up to Trump in recent months and today, they received their prize. The rest of us received the message that criming — particularly public corruption — is just fine as long as you say nice things about Donald Trump after getting caught.
But, if you didn’t get the message, our quick summary of just some of Trump’s most corrupt, pro-crime, anti-rule of law activities from just his first three weeks in office, from Day 1 right up until today, should help. Including…
- Pardoning all of the violent January 6 offenders on his first day in office;
- Firing Inspectors General from more than a dozen government agencies;
- Dropping DoJ prosecutions in progress for Republican elected officials (and even some Democratic ones that have cozied up to him);
- Firing scores of senior DoJ and FBI officials so far (he will be removing many more in the days ahead);
- Ordering all work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — the folks who police Big Bank, Credit Card and Payday Lender fraud on behalf of American consumers — immediately stopped over the weekend;
- Signing a new Executive Order on Monday halting all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), the law meant to prevent bribery by Americans and American Companies of foreign officials. (Trump’s order describes the federal law as an “excessive barrier” to U.S. commerce!);
- Quietly removing the head of the Office of Special Counsel at the Justice Department last Friday, (That’s the office in charge of overseeing whistleblower complaints against the government and enforcing laws meant to tamp down on undue political influence);
- And, the removal of the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) just last night. (That’s the office that polices integrity and conflicts of interest of Executive Branch officials.)
There is much more, of course, including, I’m sure, much we don’t even know about yet. But there’s a starter. And, of course, many of the acts summarized above — in addition to making Trump’s personal criming much easier — are also, themselves, unlawful, even if that may take some time for the courts to sort out. Whether Trump obeys court orders that he doesn’t like, or chooses to trigger a full blown Constitutional Crisis instead, remains to be seen.
To discuss America’s new Golden Age of Corruption, we’re joined today by longtime public corruption and ethics expert CRAIG HOLMAN, Ph.D., Capitol Hill lobbyist on Government Affairs for the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. He steps us through some of Trump’s most recent corrupt acts, such as the Friday firing of OGE Chief David Huitema who was finally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a 5-year term in December, after Republicans blocked a vote for more than a year following his nomination by President Biden. Holman, last year, was instrumental in finally helping to push Huitema’s confirmation through GOP obstruction in the Senate.
“The Office of Government Ethics serves a very fundamental purpose,” Holman explains, “to try to educate and make everyone in the administration — over 140 different federal agencies — understand what the ethics rules are, understand what the conflict of interest code is all about, and then help public officials comply with those types of rules.” Well, no wonder Trump hopes to neuter that office!
“What we’re seeing here — besides utter chaos on Capitol Hill — is a full-scale assault on accountability, oversight, and the checks and balances. It goes way beyond the Office of Government Ethics. It’s already affected the Office of Special Counsel, 17 independent IGs have been fired,” Holman tells me, before adding: “And, by the way, almost all of these firings have a direct financial impact on Elon Musk. So we’re seeing the conflict of interest code being torn apart. Every agency he’s gone into, all those agencies were overlooking Elon Musk’s business practices. The people who were in charge of that have since been fired from these agencies.”
We cover much more today in my conversation with Holman, including what interest Congress (specifically, the Republicans who currently control both chambers) may have in all of this, as their own Constitutional powers are being stripped away from them; whether Trump will actual obey court orders as they come down against him; and whether the Humpty Dumpty of our Constitutional order will ever be able to be put back together again, after all of this is finally, mercifully over.
The situation is “dire,” warns Holman today. “We are on the very precipice of losing American democracy here. In the first Trump Administration, he sounded like he wanted to end democracy, and by the end of it he actually tried throwing a coup d’etat on Jan. 6th. This time around, he knows what he’s doing. That’s why we’ve seen this flurry. He’s just marching unrestrained over our democratic norms and our democratic institutions. This is a very dire situation we are seeing here.”
As if all of that news isn’t swell enough, we close today with Desi Doyen’s latest Green News Report on the heels of the hottest January in global recorded history. Enjoy!…
‘A Very Dire Situation’ – Brad
Yes, a long and winding road (from ear to brain) out on Highway 61 (The Peak Of The Oil Wars – 17).