House Republicans: Steal All You Want

[struggle4progress]

March 31, 2017
9:06 a.m.
By Jonathan Chait

The House Republicans’ “civil war” is understandably attracting a lot of attention. But the truly unprecedented dynamic within the party right now is the complete submission of its investigatory apparatus. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is essentially acting as an agent of the administration he is supposed to be investigating. (Nunes “works for the president, he answers to the president,” explained his colleague, Representative Ted Yoho, in a moment of unintentional candor.) Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted this week not to compel the release of President Trump’s tax returns. And Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who claimed before the election that he had years of investigations on Hillary Clinton already teed up, is committing himself not to exercise any oversight over Trump’s flagrant and spreading self-enrichment.

A bipartisan norm for decades has required presidents to abjure any financial interest that could influence their decisions in office, however slight or remote. Jimmy Carter was famously required to sell off his peanut farm and subjected to a lengthy investigation ensuring the severance was absolute, to ensure he did not allow any pro-peanut bias to inflect his agenda. Trump has made a mockery of the ideal. He is not only holding onto his vast empire, and refusing to disclose its contours — which means his policies could be lining his pockets in ways about which the public has no inkling — but he is leveraging his power to make himself even richer. McKay Coppins asks Chaffetz if any of these actions strike him as the kind of thing he should exercise his oversight authority over. Chaffetz’s quotes are incredible ...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/house-republicans-to-trump-steal-all-you-want.html

[Warpy]

1. I remember reading factoids somehwere in the early 90s,

before Clinton took office and long before the boom stock markets, that a decent fund manager would average 2% growth per year, and that a manager who guessed consistently right and had a great year might achieve 5%-6%. Then it said members of Congress consistently averaged 12% portfolio growth per year.

That's a lot of underhanded dealing and unprovable insider information at work,, folks, and that was before they got completely corrupt.

(I remember the date and numbers because I do that, can't remember the source, could have been Harper's)