"Epic Corruption In Plain Sight"

 

From Michael Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice, on the Malignant Fascist's "Epic Corruption in Plain Sight": 

"...There is a zone of lawlessness around the Oval Office, erected by the Supreme Court when it granted current and former presidents effective immunity from prosecution if their crimes involved 'official acts.' Loot the taxpayers, misuse government power for graft, and you’re off the hook.

Last week, the president filed a report with the Office of Government Ethics detailing the stock trades he made this year. It is a novelistic tale of profiteering, recognizable as insider trading in every way except, perhaps, under the law. 

Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer offers a useful guide.

In recent months, as Paramount and Netflix vied to buy Warner Brothers, Trump bought stock in all three companies. Now the Justice Department is considering whether to approve Paramount’s purchase of Warner Brothers.

As CNBC reported, Trump 'scooped up shares' in the data firm Palantir. Soon after, he abruptly praised the firm. 'Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war fighting capabilities and equipment,' Trump posted, even highlighting its ticker name. 'Just ask our enemies!!!' All this while Palantir was winning big federal contracts.

He invested in Oracle while brokering its deal to buy TikTok.

Just this week, he paraded off Air Force One in China, flanked by the CEOs of Nvidia and Boeing. Trump bought millions of dollars of Boeing stock before the trip, which led to the sale of 200 Boeing airplanes to the Chinese government. Among his biggest purchases has been Nvidia stock, which has seen steep increases after the U.S. government cleared 10 Chinese companies to purchase its advanced chips, in a big reversal from earlier national security concerns..." 

Financially stressed Americans going about their daily lives may only be getting a fraction of the fraction of the corporate media's coverage of the MF's corruption, if that.  (Some have said, beyond the risk they run for angering the unstable MF, the notion of the MF's corruption is already "baked in" and, therefore, not much a a story for them -- which, of course, allows him to get away with just short of murder.)  This fog of cowardice/ exhaustion needs to be overcome by a strong focus on the MF's corruption during the campaign season and beyond.  It's not only a righteous focus, but a politically potent one.

(Illustration:  Khoa Tran, Vanity Fair/ photos from Getty Images)