Trump Thought the Rules Didnt Apply and Now Hes Paying the Price

[pbmus]

Soon after Donald Trump became president, he began running into a whole set of rules about how government works, like demands that he divest assets or put them in a blind trust, and rules about whether he could hire family members for top jobs. For Trump, who had just won election while disregarding most of the rules of political campaigning, these rules seemed antiquated at best and punitive at worst.

The Trump team treated these rules and norms as artifacts of a hidebound and ineffective Washington, obstacles that had kept qualified, inventive people from the business sector out of public service on mere technicalities. The president-elect also clearly viewed the hue and cry of ethics experts—from Norm Eisen and Richard Painter to Walter Shaub—as efforts to delegitimize his presidency.

What the last few weeks, and especially the last few days, have brought home is that the rules exist in part to protect the people who are supposed to follow them. Just like your elementary-school teacher told you not to run in the hallways not because she was a martinet but because you’re liable to trip and hurt yourself, ethics rules and norms can help an administration protect itself and the country. This week, the cases of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson show what happens when they aren’t followed.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/554486/

[dlk]

1. Trump has Been Entitled all of His Life and Not Held Accountable for His Actions

Why would he think life in the White House would be any different?

[TheSmarterDog]

2. He'll only start "paying the price" when he's in prison.

[SoCalMusicLover]

5. Yeah, What Price Is He Paying Now?

He's doing whatever the fuck he wants, and is being enabled by the repub party. Rough life.

[Angry Dragon]

3. rules only apply to democrats it seems

[gratuitous]

6. Trump also has the low cunning to distinguish what really is a rule

His default setting is to fight any restrictions on his activities. Disclosure of his tax returns? No rule says he has to. While that in and of itself would disqualify a lot of politicians, nobody really made a big deal out of it, at least not a big enough deal to hurt Trump. It was a can't-lose proposition anyway. Trump didn't want to disclose his taxes or his financial information, and it didn't matter if he won or lost the campaign. If he lost, then nobody would care and he wouldn't have to disclose. Win. If he won, he could defy anyone who insisted on reviewing his financial records because he'd won without doing so. Win again.

Same goes for the anti-nepotism laws in the U.S. Code, which were enacted specifically in the wake of Robert Kennedy serving as his brother John's attorney general. The rules are quite specific, but I saw a story recently (last couple of weeks) that asserted that the White House was exempt from that portion of the Code. It's not, but it has become the accepted wisdom that the president isn't constrained from having family members on his staff. The dodge Trump is using is that folks like Ivanred aren't being paid for their service. Taxpayers are still getting rooked.

With the executive acting in a runaway corrupt manner, private citizens have sought to rein it in. The judiciary, though, is reluctant to grant standing to the hoi polloi because it's really up to the legislative branch to serve as a check on the executive. How's that working out for us? Don't ask. If this Executive lawlessness continues, and Congress continues to evade its constitutional responsibility, and the Courts won't intervene on behalf of We the People, it's unclear what alternative we're left with that doesn't include taking the law into our own hands.

[regnaD kciN]

4. Is he...?

If he really were, he'd be out of the White House (and in the "big house"...?) by now.