[Special] Team Trump, A Failure of Ethics

Thanks to the independent reporting of the Washington Post, there have been a few recent stories and editorials highlighting the grift and graft that Donald Trump has built a legacy on:

• Airplanes, Golf Courses, Trademarks and More - Trump’s Government Will Oversee His Businesses by Rosalind S. Helderman, Drew Harwell and Tom Hamburger (January 15, 2017): 

Airplanes belonging to Donald Trump’s businesses will be inspected over the next four years by employees of the Federal Aviation Administration that he will lead.

Disputes over Trump’s trademark registrations could be reviewed by judges appointed by his hand-picked commerce secretary. His Department of Housing and Urban Development could reverse its past opposition to a potentially lucrative sale of a large subsidized housing complex in New York partly owned by the president-elect. And Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency will have the power to roll back clean-water rules he and other golf course owners have said are harmful to their industry.

When Trump takes office on Friday, he will assume control of a federal bureaucracy with enormous power to bolster nearly every corner of his real estate, licensing and merchandising empire — and enhance his personal fortune.

• Trump Cabinet Nominees Meet Growing Ethical Questions by Karen Tumulty, John Wagner and Ed O'Keefe (January 18, 2017)

The most serious concerns surround personal investments by Trump’s health and human services nominee, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), in health-care firms that benefited from legislation that he was pushing at the time.

Additionally, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, has acknowledged during his confirmation process that he failed to pay more than $15,000 in state and federal employment taxes for a household employee.

And Commerce Department nominee Wilbur Ross revealed that one of the “dozen or so” housekeepers he has hired since 2009 was undocumented, which he said he discovered only recently. The employee was fired as a result, he added.

All of those are the kinds of problems that have torpedoed nominees in the past. But it is far from certain — or even likely — that any of Trump’s nominees will buckle under the political pressure.

That is in part because the ­president-elect himself has broken so many norms — notably, by flouting the convention of major-party presidential candidates making their tax returns public and by refusing to sever himself from his financial interests while he is in the White House.