The Trump regime slowly is opening the door to corruption

Pres. Trump signs executive order pausing enforcement of U.S. law banning foreign bribes | Watch 

Update: 2/11/2025  Donald Trump pauses enforcement of decades-old foreign bribery ban

Original post continues.Within three weeks of being sworn in, Trump and his billionaires have already opened the doors to corruption.   Welcome to the brave new world of Trump...where bribery is back in style in business negotiations abroad,, and China, Iran, and Russia can influence what we hear and see in US media, and it is just ok with the Department of Justice.Pam Bondi ends FBI effort to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics The greatest beneficiaries, multinational corporations owned by US billionaires

.Sometimes hidden in actions by the new Bondi driven Department of Justice are changes that appear to be subtle and bureaucratic and others that are blaring.  Blaring was dispanding the DOJ section that focused on investigating foreign influence in US elections. That was just done         . This newest one would probably go unnoticed unless you knew how US business was conducted abroad. Not permitted was bribery, either the taking of bribes or bribing the country or people involved in foreign negotiations. That was just changed: bribery is now OK. A Game-Changer Relating to FCPA Enforcement | Insights | Holland & Knight  

The laws are not changed; the enforcement is openly abandoned and announced to the world.  

The greatest beneficiaries, multinational corporations owned by US billionaires

What transactional meant to Trump is not what we first thought

After four years we now know what being a "transactional president" really means. It came into even sharper focus in the days between November 3 and the vote of the Electoral College. It was also an element in impeachment. Being transactional was not what many first thought. We now know from experience Trump meant being transactional was his modus operandi to get his way in everything, not just in trade deals, and doing it with corrupt intent or not.

Like many, I initially thought Trump meant that he, as a great businessman, knew how to drive a hard bargain with the Chinese or other trade deals because he had mastered the art of the deal. Horse trading, dealing, and self-interest are also the stuff of which politics and compromises are often made. There were no high minded values, national security, and general national welfare that were the primary concerns involved in many of the kinds of deals Donald Trump negotiated, implied, or in which he anticipated paybacks. It can also be a fundamental definition of corruption if there are abuses by public officials with intentions to pad their personal purse or add to political personal advantage, bribery, to induce others to break the law, or for the initiating dealer to break the law himself and ignoring the Constitutional constraints while doing it.

It was much more than just an '"I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". For Trump, it was he expected "favors returned for favors given." It also became to mean " if my favors are not returned, I'll ruin you via tweet and try to get you prosecuted via the Department of Justice or primaried and have your political future destroyed". It meant he expects those to whom he gave a job or position or helped them achieve their goals to put loyalty to him over anything else, including violating the oath of office to which they swore to honor.

There are several "transactional deals" Trump put forth either implied or overtly that are the poster children examples of what "transactional" meant to him.. One was Trump's attempt to use federal dollars and weapons to force the Ukraine president to find dirt on the Bidens."I have a favor to ask though" as in the next sentence or two he implied there were those military weapons Ukraine wanted. He did not express the deal so crassly, but the context and the sequence were all he needed. That got him impeached, though partisan loyalty and fear of retribution got him acquitted in the Senate, even when some GOP senators admitted quietly the House impeachment managers made their case but still voted to acquit him.

The other was his expecting loyalty from his appointees to the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court. It was overtly expressed by Trump that was the reason he wanted Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court rushed before the election .Per the election, fearing a tie vote, he said, “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. We need nine justices.” He must have expected judges and justices in the court system, lower and higher, to put aside the law, and instead vote to support his expressed goal to throw out votes against him in a close election.

It meant that GOP public officials in charge of managing the presidential vote were expected to "overturn" the popular vote because mail-in ballots and African American votes were defacto fraudulent, even though there was no evidence. .That is the way it works in autocracies so why should it not work for him? He had the power and immunity from criminal prosecution. He made telephone calls, tweets, and held meetings to pressure his beneficiaries. December 8 that transaction bore no fruit as the Supreme Court without dissent of any justice, including his three appointees, rejected an appeal to overturn the Pennsylvania vote. Before that, his attempt to upend the public vote in lower courts went down in flames as 35 plus lawsuits were decided against his attempt to get the will of the people reversed on any pretext of cases brought before the courts. Judges who were appointed by Democrats and Republicans, including those who were put in place by Trump and the GOP in the past four years by Senate action, ruled against Trump's expressed desire to overturn the vote. The single case his lawyers won did not affect the vote outcome.

Trump forgot one basic fact In any transaction. It takes two parties to agree to a transaction. So far, the justices and judges were loyal to the letter of the law, not to the deal of Trump.

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Abuse of power: another article of impeachment?

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, June 13-14, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-abuse-of-power-another-article-of-impeachment/

A new term is creeping into the impeachment vocabulary thanks to recent media focus.  It is abuse of power , the  second article of impeachment against Nixon in the Watergate scandal. Reminders of this are  good reasons to  take a  deeper dive into where we stand today on impeachment and what articles of impeachment could be brought  if Donald Trump were to be the subject.

 First, impeachment of Trump is unlikely but possible. What is different from Watergate  is that Democrats held the majority In both House and Senate and  controlled the House impeachment process when GOP Nixon was president.  Today, President Trump’s party is the majority in both House and Senate. Even then, it would take a vote of 2/3 of the Senate to convict even if  the  House of Representatives  turns blue in 2018 and begins the impeachment process.  Chances are slim  that Donald Trump would be impeached while the Senate is likely to be still  too closely divided to convict. The House or Senate  could gain a Democratic majority in 2018, and do damage to the GOP/Trump in 2020 by holding hearings, though.   A  damning report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller or Trump’s firing of the investigators investigating him  might even  give a GOP Congress  enough of  a backbone to proceed. So far Trump has been told by Mueller  he is a subject, but not the target of his criminal  investigations, yet. Impeachment articles are as the House defines them.  Much could  fall under the Constitution’s   high crimes and misdemeanors clause.

 Nixon resigned  before impeachment.  We still have the articles of impeachment to compare and contrast.  The  first article of impeachment against Nixon was obstruction of justice. White House tapes showed he lied about his part in the coverup.  In Trump’s case , Mueller must show  Donald Trump’s criminal intent was to obstruct the Russian investigation when he fired  FBI Director James Comey. Impeachment articles do not need  a prosecution’s criminal findings, though.  In December Trump wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the chief investigator investigating him, and Mueller’s boss, Rod Rosenstein, before they have made their final report. He claims often they are on a witch hunt. He has  backed off when GOP senators said that would be obvious evidence of  intent to obstruct  justice. Some witches have been found already in Trumps immediate circle and some are  Russians. Many  are under Mueller’s gun, some  already charged, indicted,  pleaded, out on bond,  or in jail

 Other possible impeachment articles authorized  in the Constitution are bribery and   treason, neither in Nixon’s articles. Treason could  be  more politely defined  as (collusion)  conspiring with a foreign government (Russia)  to help his  election and their national interests, a major focus of the Mueller investigation.  Connections between the Trump business organization and Trump himself benefiting from recent real estate loan deals with China coinciding with lifting sanctions on a Chinese telecom are raising eyebrows, not to mention violation of Constitutional emoluments clauses.

  In the Nixon case the abuse of power charge was based on his ordering  the IRS  to go after those on his enemies list, including the LA Times and their owners.  Trump’s repeated  demands  of  the semi autonomous  postmaster  to increase postal rates on Amazon, is suspected abuse  because its owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Washington Post, Trump’ chief media critic. Trump  has tried to argue Amazon pays   too low  postal rates which causes USPS deficits, but obvious evidence is  that deficit is caused by pension funding. Trump’s role in the denial of the Time Warner ATT merger that would have helped CNN is once again under scrutiny.  To be subject to impeachment and  prosecution,  the threat does not need to be carried out. Update June 12, 2018  Courts OK Time Warner ATT merger:https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/12/att-time-warner-merger-approved-642333

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 To write this blog, I drew on so many source and documents, and my own research for prior posts on the impeachment procedure,  there are too many to list. However, I am particularly indebted for MSNBC’s  Rachel Maddow’s calling thoroughly documented  attention to the history of the Nixon impeachment’s article 2 in a recent broadcast and the implication of Trump’s demand on the US Postal Service

An update: Trump refuses to provide information about how he has  persoally profited during his tenure...another example of both abuse of power and thumbing his nose at the emoluments clause:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/trumps-company-isnt-tracking-all-the-money-it-gets-from-foreign-governments

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/15/media/trump-jessica-rosenworcel-nbc-license/index.html

http://fortune.com/2018/05/12/rudy-giuliani-trump-att-time-warner-merger/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/trump-threatens-nbc-tv-licenses-after-story-on-nuclear-buildup

BBC reports Cohen took Ukraine bribe money to arrange meeting with Trump http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44215656

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anything-stop-foreign-government-favors-trump-043850542.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/trump-sought-to-fire-mueller-in-december.html

https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/violent_crimes/criminal-threats.htm

Articles of impeachment against Nixon regarding abuse of power: . ”repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice in the conduct of lawful inquiries, of contravening the law of governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies. ...”   

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/02/trump-amazon-jeff-bezos-stock-value-495803

As I noted in a prior Facebook posting that this threat against Amazon shipping rates  is really  stupid  on Trump’s part. Amazon can switch to Fed Ex and UPS with which they already have contracts avoiding the Post Office and this will spur Amazon’s stated plans to short cut all of these services by moving up the time line in establishing their own delivery service, already in the works. The only people punished by this will be us consumers and million customers of Amazon who will pay higher shipping rates or they will be absorbed by Amazon until their own service is on line or they use UPS and Fed Ex instead.  The financial loss will be USPS’.

  Full disclosure: I am the owner of a small cosmetic company which is an Amazon seller and I am a customer, too.  I live  an hour and a half way from major retailers so I depend on ecommerce.  Even when my own web ecommerce site sells the same items at a lower price also  including shipping, customers prefer to order the same ones offered  on Amazon because they trust their guarantees and policies made to Prime customers and prefer  the user friendliness  of their technology.  I imagine  Donald Trump is neither an Amazon  seller nor a customer so he has no clue other than  thinking this is a way to punish a media outlet owner by trying to damage his  other business’ investors’ stock prices. This action if implemented  is likely to end up in civil court anyway over  contract matters.