The Emoluments Dog That Is Still To BarkEditors’ Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall

The Emoluments Dog That Is Still To Bark

Editors’ Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall / 7h

When the Trump/Ukraine scandal broke, now almost a month ago, I said that the biggest revelation wasn’t that Trump would do these things or try to do these things but that he could do them and all of his top advisors would go along with it and even participate in whatever cover-ups were necessary to conceal. Don’t call me naive. One of the biggest takeaways from the Mueller Report was while Trump committed all sorts of obstructive acts, he was actually shut down at a number of points by top advisors. Either they yessed him and then ignored his demands. Or they refused and he relented. Or in some cases they threatened to resign. Usually Trump backed down. Trump usually didn’t have the guts to make the big moves himself. It was usually trying to get someone else to do it — usually some version of shutting down the investigation or firing Bob Mueller. Frequently, they refused.

From the start, the biggest revelation in this scandal was that nothing like that seemed to apply on the foreign policy or intelligence side of the ledger. There was that remarkably notable spree of resignations or firings around the time of the crucial Trump/Zelensky phone call, as I noted here. So perhaps we’ll learn that more resistance was afoot than we know now. But this plot dated back to at least late 2018. And there’s no reason to believe we’d know about any of it unless a relatively low-level whistleblower decided to come forward.

The implication of all this is critically important to understand.

Fundamentally this wasn’t about ‘dirt’ or investigations or even election interference. It was about using the power of the American republic to enrich and advantage Donald Trump personally — and not in some vague or indirect way, but in the most crude, life-and-death exchanges. Whether it’s help winning an election or landing a hotel deal is secondary.

Also important is that such transactions would in most cases almost certainly not require the kind of merciless, naked and repeated demands that were made of the government of Ukraine. If Donald Trump or a family member simply opined, in the context of some diplomatic discussion, that some investment assistance would be greatly appreciated, it goes without saying any number of Gulf potentates would need to hear no more.

Which brings us to the question of emoluments and monetary, venal corruption. Everyone has known this was possible, even probable. The most likely countries have been pretty obvious: ones where the leaders own rather than govern the countries and where channeling money into the Trump family would be most easily managed. The Gulf monarchies are overwhelmingly the most obvious candidates but they are far from the only ones. Indeed, in the Ukraine story, while we don’t know specifically of any money into the Trump family’s hands, we already have seen concrete evidence of substantial sums being funneled to his lawyer and fixer, Rudy Giuliani.

Trump’s willingness has always been a given. That of crooked oligarchies looking for advantage is equally so. The question has been the acquiescence, if not necessarily the connivance, of high level advisors. That is clear now too.

In other words, there is every reason to think, the very strong likelihood that Donald Trump’s corruption and lawlessness has already infected relationships with numerous countries abroad. It’s now just a matter of finding out the details.