Former FBI director James Comey once compared Donald Trump’s gang of loyalists to the Mafia. “Holy crap, they are trying to make each of us an amica nostra—friend of ours. To draw us in.”
And draw in people Trump did: Cabinet members and other officials, campaign workers, lawyers, talking heads at Fox. The very apt comparison with gangster politics played itself out once again at the Republican National Convention.
The cast of characters indicted and convicted was worthy of Mafia status, starting of course with the ex-President, a felon. There’s Peter Navarro, fresh from his four-month prison term: “I went to prison so you won’t have to,” Navarro told the audience. “I am your wake-up call.” (He got a one-minute standing ovation.)
Then there are Rudy Giuliani, convicted in the fake electors scheme; and Paul Manafort, pardoned by Trump for his role in the Russia election interference case. (Apparently not attending were Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser whom Trump pardoned and has promised to bring back; Steve Bannon, who is in jail on contempt of Congress charges; and Roger Stone, Trump’s henchman, also pardoned.)
We’ll probably meet all of these people again if there’s a Trump II.
Election deniers from the states were well represented at the RNC. As reported by NPR, there were three fake electors from Arizona (including two state senators), five from Nevada, three from Georgia, and two from Michigan.
They are all under federal criminal indictments and required special permission from a judge to travel to Milwaukee. “Election deniers from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin are also present as delegates at the RNC,” NPR noted. When interviewed, none of these people would acknowledge their illegal acts or false accusations. They were actually all victims of “political persecution,” you see.
Tag-Team Corruption
And let’s not forget the blatantly corrupt in attendance, headlined by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. They used their positions as senior advisers in the Trump administration to make millions of dollars in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular, and in China.
And they’re still actively peddling influence. Kushner is engaged in major real estate deals with Serbia and Albania—luxury homes and hotels in resorts made possible by high-level contacts Kushner cultivated earlier. Kushner, Ivanka, and Richard Grenell have traveled to the Balkans and met with senior Albanian officials, the New York Times reports. Grenell was an acting director of national intelligence under Trump, ambassador to Germany, and special envoy to the Balkans.
Trump himself continues to invest in the Middle East. Right now, he’s involved in a development deal in Oman along with Saudi real estate interests.
The Saudis in turn have shown a strong interest in Kushner’s Albania projects. This tallies with the key elements of Kushner’s portfolio.
After Trump’s defeat, Kushner formed an investment firm, Affinity Partners, which has $3 billion in funding, 99 percent from foreign sources: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund ($2 billion), investors in Qatar ($200 million) and the United Arab Emirates ($200 million), and Foxconn (a leading Taiwan electronics manufacturer). So far, Kushner’s firm has invested about $1.2 billion, almost all in companies abroad. It’s tag-team corruption.
Costs and Consequences
As we all know, all the charges, jail terms, and corrupt practices will be history if Trump wins in November. His thoroughly politicized justice department will take care of that.
Official corruption, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, will largely vanish as Trump and family erase the line between public and private financial moves. Bribery, for example, need no longer be hidden in dealings with foreign governments, companies, and other entities.
Important foreign-policy decisions related, for example, to arms sales, multinational corporation investments, technology transfers, social media companies, environmental protection, repression of human rights, and US force deployments will be thoroughly transactional. I wonder, for example, what Elon Musk has bought in return for his $45 million a month pledge to a pro-Trump super PAC, or how much environmental deregulation the fossil fuel industry has bought in return for its contributions to Trump’s reelection. In short, U.S. foreign and national security policies will have a “For Sale” sign out front.
What will not fade away with a Trump win is the national embarrassment of having a criminal gang represent the U.S. abroad and in international organizations. Of course, that will hardly matter to autocratic governments, but it might well generate considerable mistrust among democracies.
After all, if a U.S. decision is open to the highest bidder, and if the President is above the law and has a long history of fraudulent behavior, how good is the word of the United States of America?
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.
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