This particular story is getting some press, but no one’s mentioning the bribery aspect.
And it’s definitely bribery.
Even under the Supreme Court’s corrupt “it’s only bribery if you explicitly say so in advance” standard this is bribery.
And abuse of office, suppression of free speech, suppression of free association, etc. etc. etc. The list could go on, but everything the current administration does is a lot of these things.
They have a house style, is what I’m getting at here, and this is consistent with that style.
But this one is also explicitly, as in actually written down, bribery.
So, Trump has made some generalized threats against law firms that have been involved with issues he dislikes, as well as specific threats against firms that have been on the opposite side of the courtroom from him in the past (or who have hired or represented lawyers who were).
He’s even issued some executive orders banning the government from dealing with these firms, or any of their clients, which is blatantly unconstitutional in many, many ways.
So far, so normal, at least for Trumplandia.
But then things got weird.
Several of those firms have now cut deals with Trump to provide free services to “causes” selected by Trump in exchange for rescinding those orders as they would relate to these firms.
To the tune of $240 million in free services so far.
To be completely clear: Trump has taken official action, reportedly with actual written agreements in some cases, in exchange for at least $240 million in free services from the beneficiaries of those official actions.
That’s the bit that seems to be getting missed here.
Everyone’s talking about the bribery, but no one seems to be using the actual word.
Now, by the Supreme Court’s completely lawless decision that Presidents are immune to any consequences other than impeachment for “official acts” Trump cannot be personally prosecuted for any of this.
Which is probably a large part of why he’s so gung ho this time around. (Way to look after your legacy there, Roberts.)
But that decision doesn’t let anyone else off the hook.
This really needs fixin’.
Any reasonable State would be rushing to fix this before anyone could take advantage of it; at the very least a reasonable State would:
- explicitly state that not only aren’t government actors immune from prosecution for official acts, but that they will be held to a stricter standard of behavior for official acts than for private ones
- explicitly split the executive branch, so that the people tasked with enforcing the laws against official corruption aren’t the exact same people who are engaging in the corruption here
- die of embarrassment that such an obvious oversight slipped through the initial writing of the Constitution as well as over 200 years of accumulated lawmaking
But, as should be quite obvious by now, the U.S. is no longer a State that even thinks about pretending to aspire to being reasonable.
So, let’s make a note of this one and try to do better next time.
