Trump’s latest corruption
It should be noted as a public service that the name Karoline contains letters that spell the word “lie.” It should also be noted as a further public service that the name Leavitt contains letters that spell the word “lie.” That Karoline Leavitt, with her massive Christian cross perennially on display, is a double-barrelled lying Trump trollop seems therefore oddly appropriate.
Leavitt, or “Lie-Lie,” as she will occasionally be known, recently bleated in the White House briefing room to the press corps, “I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would think that president Trump would do anything for his own benefit.”
Except of course when Trump made hundreds of millions of dollars on his cryptocurrency scam that he promoted from the Oval Office. Except of course the hundreds of millions, possibly billions he and his friends made on his pump and dump stocks scam when he manipulated the market through tariff announcements. Except of course the hundreds of millions he’s made with his shady deals in China. Except of course the cool two billion dollars his son-in-law took from Saudi Arabia. Except of course the hundreds of thousands he made by forcing his Secret Service detail to stay at Trump properties, then charged them extortionate prices for the privilege.
Other than that, yeah, it would be, ahem, “frankly ridiculous” that anyone would think that “Trump would do anything for his own benefit.” Yeah. Right. Thank you, Lie-Lie.
Except now Trump has accepted a gift of a four hundred million dollar “flying palace” — a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet — from the Qatar royal family. In order to sneak around Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8 of the US Constitution, where it explicitly prohibits federal officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other thing of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives, Trump’s gang of mafia lawyers have decided that the plane will go to the Air Force then to the Trump Library. That way Trump gets to have all the advantages of ownership of the plane, without not having all the advantages of ownership of the plane. Yeah, I think that’s how it’s supposed to work.
This is, of course, blatant, out-in-plain-view acceptance of a bribe. Imagine the shit-fit Fox “News” would have had if President Barack Obama had done this. Or Biden or Clinton. It would have knocked Hillary’s emails into the corner. They would have dined out on it for years. When Trump does it? Well, you know the rest.
So once again Trump is corruptly profiting from a presidential office he is constitutionally debarred from holding. Interesting that the plane is worth four hundred million dollars. That’s the same amount of money that Trump inherited from his father. The “business genius” then proceeded to parlay that money into a whopping two billion dollar debt. I hope he does something similar with the plane.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.