Many historians, analysts and politicians now agree that Donald Trump’s presidency is the most corrupt in U.S. History. But on the corruption front will Trump again be “Teflon Don?” Will there be consequences and, more importantly, could his corruption actually be the thing that sinks him?
The Bulwark’s Mona Charen thinks it will.
Did you catch the story about Trump trying to raid the Treasury to the tune of $10 billion? Last week, a judge paused it, but Trump, in his personal capacity, is suing the IRS for that staggering sum. It’s the latest in a string of grasping, grubby assaults on public integrity that have marked the Trump regime. This is not just the most corrupt presidency in American history, it is among the most corrupt regimes on earth. To find rivals, you must look to places like the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos or Russia under Putin.
Trigger warning: The thefts and abuses below are eye-watering. I cite them not to enrage readers, but to offer a theory that we may, at long last, be passing out of the “LOL nothing matters” phase of this travesty. There is good reason to believe that, finally, Trump’s unprecedented corruption is going to bite him in the ass.
She goes through all of the corruption in great detail then adds:
The Trump family has increased its net worth by about $4 billion since January 2025, with the total now approaching $6.2 billion.
And this is just the financial corruption. The perversion of justice is perhaps even worse—prosecuting Trump’s critics and pardoning his allies.
And then:
Why do I say that we may be nearing a turning point? Any country that could passively accept the UAE gift, the Qatar plane, and the January 6th pardons is beyond caring, no? We’ll see. My theory is that two things must be present for people in a free republic to turn a blind eye to corruption: 1) Their personal bank accounts must be flush, and 2) they must believe that most of the corruption stories are just partisan attacks.
The American economy was very strong in the 1990s, and though Bill Clinton behaved in an abominable fashion toward women, people were willing to overlook it. Similarly, voters in 2024 made a bargain: Though they knew Trump was corrupt, they bet that he would bring them the kind of economy they’d enjoyed in 2018. This isn’t an admirable trait, but there is good reason to think it’s the way many voters operate.
Trump has not delivered on the bargain. On the contrary, economic conditions are now worse than they were in 2024. Nor can Trump rely on partisanship to come to his rescue because it isn’t the Democrats who are making the case about corruption, it’s Trump himself and his allies. It is Trump who used the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to make the case for his garish ballroom. It is Senate Republicans who are adding the insult of demanding taxpayers pay $1 billion for this monument to Trump’s ego. It is Trump, not his opposition, who instructs voters that they should be happy with fewer dolls at Christmas. It is Trump who accepts gold bars from the Swiss delegation and adorns the Oval Office in a style that could be called neo-Saddam.
The corruption never seemed to matter much to the American people before, but when gas prices are near $5 a gallon, groceries have only gone up, and the economy is skidding toward recession, the gold leaf becomes not an eccentricity but an indictment. The worm has turned.
Go the link to read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.