In all the tiresome interviews with Trump voters these days, one of the most astonishing aspects is their total assurance that Trump has kept all his promises but most especially that he “drained the swamp.” They actually believe that he has been a crusader against corruption.
I don’t know if they consciously understand that the right wing fever swamp has defined “corruption” as anyone who disagrees with the president or stands up for the rule of law. But they seem quite sure that Trump and his men are honest as the day is long.
I guess they never see stories like this:
Erik Prince, a major Republican donor and founder of controversial security firm Blackwater, has been referred to the U.S. Treasury Department for possible sanctions violations tied to his recent trip to Venezuela for a meeting with a top aide of President Nicolas Maduro, two senior U.S. officials said.
A person familiar with Prince’s visit said he had been asked to travel to Venezuela by an unidentified European businessman with longstanding ties to the oil-rich nation. The person said Prince did not discuss any business nor receive anything of value during his trip — actions that would’ve violated U.S. financial sanctions on Maduro’s socialist government.
The purpose of the trip was to meet key players in the crisis-wracked nation, not to serve as an emissary for the Trump administration, according to the person, who isn’t authorized to discuss the visit and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ok. Maybe he was just meeting and greeting for no reason whatsoever. More likely he is pitching some kind of business deal. That’s what he usually does. But these “deals” are often for truly nefarious mercenary activity.
Prince has been all over the Trump campaign and administration, most memorably trying to get Trump to privatize the war in Afghanistan and make him the Viceroy. If he’s involved in foreign policy, there’s money in it.
Meanwhile, Rudy’s been active in Venezuela too. The Washington Post reported Sunday that he was on a back-channel phone call with former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro w and former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX). They report that “both were part of a shadow diplomatic effort, backed in part by private interests, aimed at engineering a negotiated exit to ease President Nicolás Maduro from power and reopen resource-rich Venezuela to business, according to people familiar with the endeavor.”
Rudy has also been financially and “diplomatically” involved in Eastern Europe and Turkey.
The swamp is an ocean. And Trump’s cronies are paddling around in it like they own it.
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