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Tag: pay for play
Pay For Play? Consider Donald Trump’s Crony Cabinet

Pay For Play? Consider Donald Trump’s Crony Cabinet

Only Donald Trump would continue sponsoring campaign-style rallies, a full month after Election Day. And only Trump’s most fervent followers, the zealots who still show up to hear him gloat at those “thank you” events, would continue to chant “Drain the swamp!” at his command — when he is so obviously emptying that swamp into the White House swimming pool.

The bad joke of 2016 is that Trump routinely perpetrates every one of the offenses charged against Hillary Clinton, whether invented or plausible, yet escapes all the blaming and shaming that fell so heavily upon her. The starkest example is the contrast between the Clinton Foundation, an enormous force for good that was falsely accused of wrongdoing in countless stories, columns, and broadcasts, and the Trump Foundation, a vainglorious vehicle for tax evasion that has confessed to unlawful self-dealing and remains barred from doing business by authorities in its home state.

But it is the Clintons’ reputation that suffered damage, even as Trump and his family remain unscathed.

During the campaign, Trump shrieked “pay for play!” to defame the Clintons over and over again, without proof. But now he is doling out top positions in government to the patrons of his campaign, his businesses, and even his foundation. To Trump, a post in his cabinet is not a commitment of trust granted on behalf of the people, but a plum to bestow on any crony who once did him a favor.

The most wanton example is designated Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, a political and financial opportunist who predicted months ago that if he raised enough campaign money, then Trump would reward him with precisely this powerful post. Imagine the outrage if Clinton had appointed someone like Mnuchin — a former top executive of Goldman Sachs who ruthlessly exploited government bailouts and crushed poor homeowners in the wake of the financial crisis — after he had raised millions of dollars for her campaign and predicted his payoff.

The hair on every pundit and anchor across America would simultaneously burst into flame.

But when those same media sages watch Trump appoint Mnuchin, they shrug and comment wryly on his Goldman pedigree. Trump senior adviser Steve Bannon is from Goldman as well, of course — and on December 9, Trump chose Gary Cohn, the Wall Street mammoth’s chief operating officer, to head the National Economic Council.

As someone observed, it’s as if Trump will be giving a speech to Goldman Sachs every time he addresses a White House meeting.

Another billionaire financial operator elevated by Trump is Wilbur Ross, a “vulture” capitalist who got to know the real estate mogul when Trump was going bust, bigly, in Atlantic City. It was Ross who gave him the most important boost of his business career. Rather than force him into a personal bankruptcy that would have destroyed his career (and saved us from his impending presidency), Ross persuaded the banks that owned Trump to let him survive.

That was a bad decision for many of Trump’s creditors, who saw their companies ruined, but years later turned out to be a good decision for Ross — who will soon wield influence over major policy decisions affecting trade and industry as Commerce secretary. Of course, Ross too made large donations to Trump’s campaign.

Then there’s Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive and failed Republican Senatorial candidate from Connecticut just appointed by Trump to run the Small Business Administration. Promoting a fake sport may not qualify her to operate an important agency. And her family company has many embarrassing moments in its past, including the unlamented XFL. McMahon has no experience in government at all, but she does possess even more important credentials: She and husband Vince donated $5 million to the Trump Foundation between 2009 and 2014, and $6 million to a Trump SuperPAC this year.

Pay for play? Hillary Clinton never did anything nearly so brazen, as Senator, secretary of state, or candidate. But for the man who can get away with everything, his crony cabinet is only the beginning.

How The Clinton Foundation Became A ‘Scandal’

How The Clinton Foundation Became A ‘Scandal’

Twenty years ago, James Fallows wrote an essay for The Atlantic called “Why Americans Hate the Media.” Fallows’ thesis was illustrated today by the political media’s coverage of the release of emails associated with Hillary Clinton while secretary of state.

His thesis was this: Instead of reporting the policy positions of candidates, and assessing their merits, the political press tends to abdicate its responsibilities in favor of reporting “politics.”

Put another way, instead of telling Americans the truth of the matter, anchored in observable reality and concrete fact, the political press tends to chase after “appearances,” “atmospherics,” and “optics.”

The outcome of this is the politicization of everything.

Let me explain.

The Washington Post yesterday reported that on three occasions Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin was contacted by donors to the Clinton Foundation asking for favors. The outcome of one was a meeting. The outcome of the others was nothing. That’s it.

More specifically, Doug Band, a chief executive at the Clinton Foundation, emailed Abedin about meeting with a Crown Prince of Bahrain. According to the Wall Street Journal, Abedin chided Band for not going through “proper channels.” After doing that, the prince got a meeting with Clinton. Nothing was reported of its substance.

Band contacted Abedin on behalf of U2’s Bono and sports executive Casey Wasserman, both foundation donors. Could Clinton help Bono promote an overseas charity event? “No clue,” Abedin said. Could Clinton help fast-track a visa for a British soccer player? Abedin said she had reservations. Band said never mind. No visa resulted.

That’s the story. In other words, there is no evidence from these emails to support claims by Judicial Watch, a right-wing group, or Donald Trump that the Clinton Foundation was rife with pay-for-play.

Yet our media isn’t saying this.

Instead, it is playing up Clinton’s “struggle” to figure out a way to “handle” the controversy and its challenging “optics.” Never mind that quid pro quo means something for something. In this case, the emails show the opposite–favors requested, favors denied.

Now, some are asking whether executives at the Clinton Foundation should be making these requests at all, and I think we can all say that no, they should not. If I can’t get an audience with the nation’s top diplomat, why should Bono just because he gave a lot of money?

But that’s how power works. We know this. We also know that very rich people often believe they are entitled to access to power by dint of being very rich. Like it or not, that’s the norm. In other words, rich people will ask for favors just as the sun rises in the east, sets in the west. The question is how do you deal with that ethically.

It turns out, pretty well. Thanks to a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch to unseal these emails in an attempt to damage Clinton’s campaign, we know that Huma Abedin did a good job. As political blogger Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones noted:

“What’s really noteworthy about the most recent email releases is that they demonstrate a surprisingly high level of integrity from Hillary Clinton’s shop at Foggy Bottom. Huma Abedin was tasked with running interference on favor seekers, and she seems to have done exactly that.”

I don’t expect reporters to make such judgments, but I do expect them to do their jobs, which brings me back to Fallows’ classic essay. Americans expect the media to do something no one else can do: report what politicians say, but also assess and report the truth.

In the case of this so-called “scandal,” assess whether there is any merit to Trump’s assertion that the emails prove Clinton is for sale. If that’s true, the emails should show us. But they don’t. Indeed, they show the opposite, a team that’s surprisingly ethically aware.

But reporters covering the campaign are not saying that.

It gets worse.

When reporters abdicate their duties, they created an environment in which everything has the potential to be political, even the truth.

When reporters didn’t report, for instance, that Judicial Watch is indeed a right-wing group, it was left to Clinton’s campaign spokesman to say it. As soon as he did, he legitimized Judicial Watch’s toxic effort, because his remarks were seen as partisan.

When reporters didn’t conclude there was no basis to Republican claims that Clinton’s State Department was accessible to the highest bidder, it was left to a State Department spokesman to say it. As soon as Mark Toner uttered the words, he validated the accusation.

This story was a no brainer. All reporters had to say was say: Trump said blah blah blah, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything to it.

But they didn’t.

No wonder, as Fallows said, Americans hate the media.

Photo: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tapes an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show in Los Angeles, California, August 22, 2016.  REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

#EndorseThis: James Carville On The Clinton Foundation’s New Restrictions: ‘Somebody’s Going To Hell For This’

#EndorseThis: James Carville On The Clinton Foundation’s New Restrictions: ‘Somebody’s Going To Hell For This’

Bill Clinton released a memo on behalf of the Clinton Foundation last Thursday announcing that it would no longer accept foreign or corporate donations should Hillary Clinton be elected president.

The announcement came on the heels of an editorial in the Boston Globe advocating the change in policy, as well as weeks of attacks from Donald Trump, who claimed that recently-released emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server during her time as secretary of state proved a “pay to play” relationship.

The Clinton camp and their allies deny any political favors were given in exchange for donations, but even they have been hesitant to discuss the foundation’s work itself: the Clinton Foundation was essentially absent from on-stage speeches at the Democratic National Convention, and reactions to the proposed ban on foreign donations ranged from begrudging acceptance to exasperation that the change hadn’t come sooner, even among liberals.

Which makes James Carville’s appearance on Morning Joe Tuesday all the more interesting. The former Clinton advisor said that, purely politically, the move to ban donations make sense, but that on a moral level, it’s a different story.

“As a political adviser, of course. As a human being, I’m not sure,” Carville said. “As a human being I think the foundation does an enormous amount of good, but from strictly political standpoint, like my sixth grade teacher says, somebody is going to hell over this. Understand here, this is saving people’s lives.”

Photo: MSNBC