I’ve always been frustrated by the inability of anyone to address the rank corruption of Trump’s administration. Some of his early cabinet officials were chased out of office for their greed and grift but nobody ever seemed to care much that Trump and his family were making vast sums of money from his presidency. (The utter gall of going after the Biden family for that was overwhelming.)
There were some belated senate investigtions which never held a public hearing as far as I can tell. But they’re over. And it’s going to be so much worse. Greg Sargent writes:
It’s often said that Trump campaigned expressly on a platform of authoritarian rule, but this also applies to corruption: He didn’t disguise his promises to govern in the direct interests of some of the wealthiest executives and investors in the country—and he won anyway. Trump and his allies will likely interpret this as a green light to engage in an extraordinary spree of unrestrained malfeasance.
There are several reasons to fear this could amount to a level of oligarchic corruption that outdoes anything Trump did in his first term. In short, conditions are ripe for right-wing elites to try to loot the place from top to bottom.
First, Senate Democrats, who just lost majority control, are now bracing to hit a wall in their inquiries into Trump’s apparent quid pro quo dealings. The Senate Budget Committee has been investigating the aforementioned $1 billion solicitation from Big Oil executives, aiming to establish precisely what Trump promised them—he reportedly offered to systematically roll back President Biden’s green energy policies and other regulations—seemingly in direct exchange for campaign money.
With little fanfare, this investigation has been making progress: At least one major energy company confirmed that the gathering happened, and most of the other companies haven’t refuted the central allegation, according to a committee aide. Democrats have followed up with demands for company documents that might illuminate exactly what took place.
But there is zero chance the incoming GOP majority will continue down this road, which means it will be much harder for Democrats to compel these companies to illuminate the true nature of their transaction with Trump.
“Republican control of the Senate will unfortunately undermine congressional efforts to hold Trump and executives accountable for wreaking havoc on our planet and selling out American families and U.S. energy policy to the highest bidder,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, chair of the Budget Committee, told me in a statement. He added that this will hamper getting to the bottom of this “apparent quid pro quo.” Once these policy changes start in earnest, we’ll have no way to trace them back to it, let alone to shed congressional light on influence peddling in real time.
Yeah, that’s over. So is the Jared Kushner investigation. Why the Senate didn’t make a serious attempt to take this on is a real indictment of the Democrats. I guess they had their own sugar daddies to protect. And here we are.
It’s going to be a candy store.