Even if we somehow ignore the fact that Donald Trump’s vainglorious ignorance has killed 177,000 Americans, and ignore the fact that his raging pandemic has put tens of millions out of work, his Republican convention still seems woefully tainted. Because it’s chock full of grifters.
Some people say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. The GOP speaker schedule is Exhibit A. For instance, three of the key speakers – Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric – have been barred by the state of New York from ever operating another charity, unless they first submit to special training. They were board members of the now-shuttered Trump Foundation, which was looted for Daddy’s personal benefit. Last year, Daddy had to pay a $2 million in damages.
Also on the speakers’ list is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was under investigation for misuse of department resources – until Trump fired the State watchdog who was helming the investigation. Also on the speakers’ list is Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who decided not to pursue a lawsuit against Trump University after Trump gave $25,000 to her re-election campaign. Trump took that 25K from his charitable foundation, which was barred by law from making political donations.
I suppose the list could be worse. Ex-campaign manager Steve Bannon won’t be speaking, because he’s been arrested for milking the saps who gave money to his build-the-wall scam. Ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort (who ran the 2016 confab) won’t be speaking, because now he’s a felon. Ditto ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn (who chanted “Lock Her Up” at the 2016 confab).
And there’s no way that Jerry Falwell Jr., one of Trump’s earliest evangelical endorsers, can speak at the convention, because he has been suspended from Liberty University, and because he has just announced that he’d been blackmailed by a pool boy who’d slept with his wife…while he watched. (Michael Cohen, another Trump felon, has said that he destroyed some incriminating photos shortly before Falwell tendered his Trump endorsement.)
Do you feel like you need a shower?
It gets worse – because the guy who insists on speaking each of the four nights (his eggshell ego can’t abide anything less) is of course the most blatant offender of norms and ethics. His botching of the pandemic is likely the main reason why his favorability rating in a new national poll is an abysmal 35 percent, and why he trails Joe Biden by 10 points, but his sleazebag reputation certainly hasn’t helped.
So many calamities occur on a daily basis that it’s easy to forget this stunning truth:
An incumbent president, heading into his own convention, is under investigation for bank and insurance fraud, for what the New York prosecutors call “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” – and that the prosecutors have won every single court ruling (including the U.S. Supreme Court’s) in their quest to obtain Trump’s tax and financial records.
Trump has fought tooth and nail to keep his records under wraps, despite his early promises to be transparent (2014: “If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, I would love to do that”).
And despite the Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling that nobody is above the law – John Roberts wrote, “No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding” – Trump has been back in the lower federal courts, claiming that compliance would hinder him from performing his presidential duties. (Like tweeting and playing golf.) Basically, he’s trying to run out the clock til election day.
But last Thursday – and this was somewhat lost in the news cycle, amidst the brouhaha of Steve Bannon’s arrest – a judge in U.S. District Court said it was time to cough up the records. The judge ruled that “upon thorough and independent review, it fairly and compellingly appears that the claimed imposition on the President lacks plausible basis.” He rejected Trump’s attempt to gain “absolute immunity through the back door.”
You certainly won’t hear any of this at the GOP convention. You won’t hear that Trump is virtually, finally, out of options – that a federal court of appeals will likely spurn him in its scheduled Sept. 1 hearing, mindful of what the highest court has already ruled (more John Roberts: “The public interest in fair and effective law enforcement cuts in favor of comprehensive access to evidence”).
Granted, we voters aren’t likely to learn of the newsy nuggets that lurk in Trump’s financial records, because they’d be covered by grand jury secrecy rules. But while the prosecutors and grand jury are poring over those records, we voters would have further reason to ask ourselves, “What has he been trying to hide?” After all this time, we still don’t have the full story of his career-long corruption. Does a guy like that deserve a blank check and second term?