Many posts have discussed political corruption.
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Axios:
Imagine America put these questions to a public referendum:
- Presidents and their family members, unlike other U.S. citizens, shall be granted lifetime immunity from federal audits and criminal investigations of their past tax returns.
- Presidents and their family members can maintain active ownership of global business empires, profiting when government decisions directly benefit those specific businesses.
- Presidents, while in office, can maintain massive personal crypto and stock portfolios that buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars in industries directly regulated by their own administration.
How would you vote?It's hard to imagine more than single-digit support for any of these. Yet Trump is doing all three and paving the way for future presidents to do the same. That's why precedents by presidents often matter as much as laws themselves.
Between the lines: This is more than just a Trump problem. Look at the astonishing number of lawmakers trading and making money off stocks, often with insider knowledge of looming congressional action.