The state of the union is corrupt. Oh sure, Donald Trump got up and offered a bunch of empty promises about jobs and infrastructure that Republicans have no interest in following through on, and pundits were eager to heap praise on him for being able to read off a teleprompter for an hour and a half. But the entire dog-and-pony show is, to use the threadbare term, a distraction from the real story of Trump's first year in office, which is a tale of unparalleled corruption and relentless attacks on the rule of law and our democratic systems.
With the endless firehose of horrific news stories chronicling the latest Trump transgressions or developments in the Russian investigation, it can be hard to step back and assess the collective damage this president has done to our democracy. Luckily, Common Cause and Democracy 21 worked together to release a report this month titled "The Art of the Lie," which aims to be a comprehensive overview — or as comprehensive as possible — of the ways that Trump has undermined democracy, sown corruption, obstructed justice and lied to the public in his first year in office.
“Donald Trump has failed on almost every government integrity and accountability issue that I can think of," Karen Hobert Flynn, the president of Common Cause, told Salon. "We fear that people become used to lies and misstatements and hiding information, conflicting information, attacks on the judiciary and the press, and think of it as the new normal."
Just in the week prior to the State of the Union address, the number of stories chronicling the levels of Trump corruption far outpaced what even a hardened political junkie can likely follow. The New York Times reported that Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller in June, as part of the president's endless efforts to stymie investigation into the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russian agents. Congressional Republicans have stoked a conspiracy theory claiming that FBI agents conspired against Trump, in an effort to distract from the Trump-Russia story.
Trump's administration has refused to enforce sanctions that Congress passed against Russia to retaliate against that nation's apparent election interference, and congressional Republicans pretended not to understand the implications of that decision. FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe agreed to resign and then was forced out ahead of schedule, after being browbeaten by Trump and other conspiracy theorists. Now there's an investigation into whether the FBI failed to do enough to chase down Hillary Clinton's emails -- the ones that have repeatedly been shown to have no evidence of illegal activity.
Even the State of the Union address itself got corrupted by Trump, as his campaign announced that it would be flashing the names of donors across the campaign's livestream of Trump's speech to Congress. There are no doubt a number of other stories that I've left out because, seriously, it's that hard to keep up with the corruption.
"The Art of the Lie" tries to organize this overwhelming tide of information by classifying Trump malfeasance. In the end, they still had 20 separate categories, chronicling Trump's lies, his conflicts of interest, his attacks on the rule of law and his lack of transparency. Some of these, such as Trump's actions to obstruct justice by firing FBI Director James Comey or Trump's relentless lying -- the president lied or misled the public more than 2,000 times during his first 365 days in office, according to The Washington Post -- have been heavily covered. Others, such as the way Trump has personally screened U.S. attorneys who could theoretically investigate his business interests or the way the Trump administration has hired dozens of lobbyists despite his repeated promises to "drain the swamp," have gotten a bit drowned out in the flood.
When asked what story she felt was most in need of more coverage, Hobert Flynn said that while there has been "some coverage of Trump’s conflicts of interest," the extent of the problem is so vast that even the most diligent journalists struggle to get a full scope.
"It is difficult to track down where foreign businesses and foreign governments may be currying favor in business deals that directly go into Trump’s pockets," she said. She noted that retaining his business empire around the globe while also serving as president of the United States means there are endless ways Trump could be paid off by business interests that are opposed to the best interests of the country.
"There is no way for the American people to know if domestic interests are buying influence and currying favor with Trump by funneling business to his commercial empire," the report reads. "There is no way to know if Trump is making policy decisions to benefit foreign interests in return for receiving financial benefits from the foreign interests."
The Sunlight Foundation has been trying to track these conflicts and so far has discovered 651 of them when it comes to Trump himself and more than 1,000 when his family's conflicts of interest are documented. Trump's famous Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, which he visits regularly on the taxpayer dime, doubled its membership fees after he became president. There can be little doubt that is because lobbyists and corporate special interests are willing to pay top dollar to gain direct access to Trump.
The report includes Trump's failure to fill hundreds of bureaucratic positions as evidence of his corruption. Why? Because doing so can be interpreted as a backdoor method of undermining regulations at the behest of business interests, without having to do the hard legal work of rewriting those regulations, a process that often fails to pass muster from the courts anyway.
In addition, the administration has created task forces aimed at ending various regulations. These groups are operating in secret, obviously at the behest of industries that dislike being hemmed in by public responsibility when they're trying to turn profits. As Hobert Flynn noted, many of these corporate interests also have a direct opportunity to bribe Trump through private business deals, or even by ponying up the $200,000 a year for Mar-a-Lago memberships.
Trump's corruption has spread beyond the White House and has completely consumed the Republican caucus in both houses of Congress. With few exceptions, congressional Republicans have completely thrown themselves behind efforts to conceal information about Trump's dealings with Russian agents and to malign Robert Mueller's investigation, in anticipation of needing to discredit whatever he uncovers. It's unclear whether Republicans actually know that Trump is implicated in some form of conspiracy, but their behavior strongly suggests they generally believe he is — and they're eager to prevent him from facing the consequences.
With the Watergate hearings that brought down Richard Nixon in the 1970s, Hobert Flynn mused, "the public could see what was happening." The Trump era is different: "We are kept in the dark when Congress is interviewing administration officials."
Trump's ability to corrupt everything he touches is so all-consuming that it's more than the human mind can easily comprehend. Ironically, this makes it easier for Trump to escape accountability, as the public feels overwhelmed by all the corruption and misinformation and struggles to stay focused — though the twists and turns of the Russia investigation continues to be so dramatic that it stands out amid the sea of influence-peddling, lies and self-dealing.
When asked about the overwhelming nature of Trump's corruption, Hobert Flynn said, “I completely get that seeing this in one place is really depressing when you see it all listed." She added but that she still felt hope because of "the millions of activists that are turning out, people who have not engaged in democracy or policy issues, ever, saying, 'This is wrong and we have to stop it.'" Perhaps this reminder of how bad things have gotten so quickly will help keep Americans energized through the next electoral cycle, which offers a real chance to begin to turn the tide.
Shares