‘I Want My F*cking Money’
Does Criminal Language Beget Criminal Behavior?
Obstruction of Justice. Witness tampering. Contravention of the constitution.
These are bad allegations, to be sure.
The President has been accused of many such things but — until Robert Mueller’s report is out — it all remains hearsay.
Guesswork.
If you had to guess (please answer honestly) whether or not Trump was guilty of even bigger things — treason, conspiracy, collaboration with a foreign power — would lesser infractions factor into your decision? Would they make intentional malfeasance on a grand scale more likely?
Or is that too speculative to be relevant?
We know he is, shall we say, loose with the truth. But so are many politicians.
When we decide if someone is up-to-no-good, do we rely on the authorities?
Public records? Eyewitnesses?
Or do we boil everything down to a gut feeling? A hunch? An intuition?
Researchers have a name for it — predictive processing framework.
To reach a verdict, we — as does any jurist — process the sum total of evidence presented, filtered through past experience. And, (one would hope) we generally get it right.
Here is where I am going with this:
Putting all politics aside — do you trust our president?
Before you answer, let me present a detail from a recent book.
In “The Fifth Risk,” Michael Lewis paints a frightening picture of indifference and hubris by the people responsible for the transition of presidency from 44 to 45.
He asserts that Trump only became aware of his own transition team when he read it had “raised several million dollars to pay the staff.”
His response? To Chris Christie:
“You’re stealing my fucking money!”
(Why he sees funds raised for the campaign as his money is another topic altogether.)
Then, to Steve Bannon: “Why are you letting him steal my fucking money?”
Per Lewis, Bannon and Christie then took pains to explain election practices. Federal law. That the government already paid for office space, computers . . . utilities and so forth. However, the staff had to be paid by the campaigns.
In fact, before the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, a much greater cost was borne by the campaign. If anything, he was getting off easy, billionaire or not.
What was his response to this reasoning? To these laws covering the duties of each major political party?
“Fuck the law.”
[Some of you may wish to pause here to catch your breath. Call that snowflake pearl-clutching if you must, but a presidential candidate speaking such words was beyond the pale, until recently.]
He continued:
I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.
[hears an explanation with this ultimatum: either a legal transition or keeping this extra money]
Shut it down. Shut down the transition.
Do you trust Donald J. Trump, the man?
If not, it is proof of nothing, of course. Grand juries and Senate impeachment trials have a higher burden of proof than the accused simply behaving like a mob boss.
Like an angry pimp, explaining his business to a sex worker.
It must be noted: they eventually created a transition team and (presumably) paid its staff.
. . . Quite possibly the worst transition ever, filled with and overseen by the most incompetent, ignorant, self-dealing corporate shills ever foisted upon America [my description].
A ham-handed metamorphosis of the largest, most intricate government on the planet. In its history.
If they took charge at all. Many departments waited in vain for any Trump people to show up during the transition.
The Department of Energy, on its own, has a 164 billion dollar budget. So Trump representatives did finally show up, there.
On Inauguration Day.
Better late than never? Not really — it is forbidden, by federal law, for outgoing employees to initiate contact with their replacements. [Lewis is not specific on this point; he referenced a lot of “deeply knowledgeable people.” In context, it is implied this restriction is for everyone.]
The DOE was being run by Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist on leave from MIT. He led negotiations with Iran (the ones undone by Trump, in his ‘wisdom’).
Now (and every day since January 19th, 2017) he is not allowed a single email or phone call, even if current secretary Rick Perry needs more than his Bachelors in Animal Science to figure out which uranium and plutonium is weapons-grade. . . .
For better or (far) worse— a transition happened. But Trump clearly did not embezzle that money.
For the record, he has never been accused of embezzlement.
Tax evasion, yes.
Unpaid wages.
Campaign finance violation. Self-enrichment. Money-laundering.
But not “embezzlement,” to my knowledge.
[Update, 1–17–19: His inaugural committee is accused of embezzlement. Technically not Trump, himself, but reportedly included in the Mueller probe.]
So.
With apologies for the repetition. I importune you, a final time —
Do you trust the President of the United States?
Do you believe he is incapable of conspiring against his own country?
Do you feel a man with no discernible system of values has managed the campaign and the country in an ethical manner?
Do you think his myriad financial entanglements with foreign entities are coincidental?
Or?
Or do we start to batten down the hatches for the biggest political firestorm, fiasco and fire sale since the existence of the Confederacy?
When scrutiny is lacking, tyranny, corruption and man’s baser qualities have a better chance of entering into the public business of any government.
-the late Jacob Javitz, New York Senator and Attorney General. Republican