In July of 2020, columnist Matt Ford published an article that
explained why Donald Trump is considered to be American’s most corrupt president.
Although it is worthwhile to read the entire article, you also may
want to read an article that appeared in the Washington Post yesterday.
Here are some of the highlights:
In early 2021, as Donald Trump exited
the White House, he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner faced unprecedented
business challenges. Revenue at Trump’s properties had plummeted during his
presidency, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters made his brand
even more polarizing. Kushner, whose last major business
foray had left his family firm needing a $1.2 billion bailout, faced his own
political fallout as a senior Trump aide.
But
one ally moved quickly to the rescue.
The
day after leaving the White House, Kushner created a company that he
transformed months later into a
private equity firm with $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman. Kushner’s firm structured those funds in
such a way that it did not have to
disclose the source, according to previously unreported details of Securities
and Exchange Commission forms reviewed by The Washington Post. His business
used a commonly employed strategy that allows many equity firms to avoid
transparency about funding sources, experts said.
A year after his presidency, Trump’s golf courses began
hosting tournaments for the Saudi fund-backed LIV Golf. Separately, the former
president’s family company, the Trump Organization, secured
an agreement with a
Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump hotel as part of a $4
billion golf resort in Oman.
The substantial investments by the Saudis in enterprises
that benefited both men came after they cultivated close ties with
Mohammed while Trump was in office — helping the crown prince’s standing by
scheduling Trump’s first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia, backing him amid
numerous international crises and meeting with him repeatedly in D.C. and the
kingdom, including on a final trip Kushner took to Saudi Arabia on
the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
New details about their relationship have emerged in
recently published memoirs, as well as accounts in congressional testimony and
interviews by The Post with former senior White House officials. Those
revelations include Kushner’s written account of persuading Trump to
prioritize Saudi Arabia over the objections of top advisers and a former
secretary of state’s assertion in a book that Trump believed the prince “owed”
him.
They also underscore the crucial nature of
Trump’s admission that he “saved” Mohammed in the wake of the CIA’s finding
that the crown prince ordered the killing or capture of Post contributing
opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Retired military personnel are required under
ethics rules to obtain approval to work for foreign
governments like Saudi Arabia. But there’s no requirement for Trump, a former commander
in chief, nor for former senior White House officials such as Kushner, to
disclose if they have financial ties to foreign governments, according to Don
Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics. He said their
work has exposed a glaring shortfall in ethics laws that needs to be fixed by
Congress.
At the outset, the Saudis had decided the
incoming Trump administration could offer a reset to U.S. relations with the kingdom, despite Trump’s
campaigning by saying that “Islam hates us” and calling for a “Muslim ban” of
immigrants, Kushner wrote in his memoir.
Kushner “was learning diplomacy on the fly,” he wrote in
his memoir. Mohammed’s associates sensed Kushner’s inexperience during a
post-election meeting. In a summary of the 2016 talk by
Saudi officials reported by the
Lebanese publication Al Akhbar, Mohammed’s advisers wrote: “Kushner made clear
his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations.”
It soon became clear that Kushner effectively was
running foreign policy on Saudi Arabia.
As his administration ended, Trump’s brand was troubled.
His family’s hotels, resorts and other properties had lost $120 million in revenue in
2020 thanks to the pandemic and his polarizing presidency. He faced multiple
investigations into his business practices and actions seeking to overturn his
2020 defeat; then in December 2022, the Trump Organization was convicted of tax
fraud.
Kushner, meanwhile, faced potential difficulties
because of both his association with Trump and his own failings. Kushner’s
family company had already required a bailout in 2018
from a Canadian firm because of his decision to buy a $1.8 billion
office building in New York. An ongoing congressional investigation is
looking into whether the bailout was partially financed by Qatar’s sovereign
wealth fund. Now, despite having no experience running a private equity fund,
Kushner was in search of billions of dollars for his new venture.
Saudi Arabia, however, soon invested in both men.
The above paragraphs are just a sample of the problems
highlighted in the Washington Post article.
I’m not smart enough to predict how we should deal with
Saudi Arabia, but it’s clear that it will not be the same as is was during the
Trump era.
You’re not going to find a list of the 10 most corrupt
presidents, but “Insider Monkey” awarded the #1 spot to Richard Nixon. However, since JFK, LBJ, Harry Truman, and Bill Clinton also made the list, don’t take the
list as gospel.
Remember, Nixon was the man who said, “I am not a crook”.
Compared to Trump, though, Nixon was a saint.
Donald Trump still has millions of supporters, but (for a
variety of reasons) he is NOT going to be elected president again.
For that, we can give thanks.
Well written article about a thorough scoundrel.
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