Donald Trump’s sister is the latest to take the fall
Last fall, the New York Times published an extraordinary exposé on how Donald Trump swindled his elderly father out of huge sums of money, and hid it all with one tax scam after another. Six months later, we’re finally seeing consequences for the Trump family – just not for Donald. Instead his sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, is taking the fall.
Maryanne Trump Barry just announced her retirement from the bench, specifically to fend off an ethics probe into the role that she may have played in Donald Trump’s financial scheming, according to a followup report from the NY Times. She was specifically being probed because she was a judge, as they’re held to a higher standard on these kinds of things; she could have been forced out even if her behavior was merely found to have been improper but not illegal. Barry was already partly retired anyway, but this ensures that her career will end in scandal and disgrace.
Here’s the kicker. If Maryanne Trump Barry was knowingly participating in Donald Trump’s financial malfeasance, then there’s no reason to feel sorry for her; she deserves the bad end that she’s getting. But if Donald hadn’t egomaniacally decided to run for President of the United States and thus brought this scrutiny on himself, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would have ever known about his sister’s alleged financial fraud.
This means that yet another unethical person in Donald Trump’s orbit has taken the fall as a result Donald Trump’s endless scheming and quest for power. We’ve already seen so many other people in Trump’s orbit take the fall under similar circumstances, from Michael Cohen to Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn, and now a member of Trump’s family is meeting a bad fate as well. Maryanne Trump Barry may not be the last person to fit that description.
