Trumpworld USA’s murky depths

The Office of Government Ethics in Washington, D.C., is more than a stone’s throw from the White House, which, all in all, is probably a good thing.

That’s because the 80 or so full-time employes at OGE have not been able to get the attention of the chief White House resident in any other way and might, if they were closer, become frustrated enough to toss a few stones, or at least clink a few pebbles off the bullet-proof windows.

They would like Donald Trump to understand that he is putting at risk a great deal more than his personal fortune by refusing to untangle his role as president from his role as owner and ultimate beneficiary of a worldwide business empire.

He is, in fact, permanently staining the office of president and demeaning America’s role as the prime example of the successes that free government and free enterprise can accomplish together.

But Trumpworld USA shrugs off such notions. Chief Obfuscator Sean Spicer keeps suggesting that the American people don’t care about Trump’s web of conflicts of interest, are unperturbed by his failure to release his tax returns and we could care less that two of his closest advisers, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, continue to benefit directly from her worldwide fashion franchise that has more than three dozen potentially lucrative trademark protection applications pending before the governments of 10 countries, including China and the Philippines.

The people four blocks from the White House discovered that Americans do care. In the October-to-March six-month period of fiscal year 2009, OGE received 733 citizen inquiries, comments and complaints.. In FY 2016, the number was 164. The 2017 figure: 39,105.

Trumpworld USA has perfected the dark art of distorting or ignoring facts it doesn’t like and values raw power over moral and ethical concerns. It knows that OGE has no enforcement power and can only make recommendations to Trump’s Justice Department. When you have only moral persuasion in your arsenal, battling Trumpworld USA is a losing proposition.

OGE’s sole mission is advising on ethics. It is not in the legislative or political business, so it will not be trying to warn Trumpworld USA of the greatest danger its ethical blindness invites: that if Trump’s personal empire continues to prosper while the Trump administration is unable to ease the nation’s most severe problems, what must Americans conclude? And who will pay the political price of the failure?

Has he been tending his business or theirs? It’s impossible to know because the hidden tax returns and undisclosed foreign business entanglements mask the extent of the conflicts of interest.

For instance, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently won a constitutional referendum that ended Turkey’s long-running democratic experiment, Trump, incredibly, called to congratulate him. In a 2015 interview Trump had talked of owning a “major, major building in Istanbul.” In whose interest was that foolish call made, his or ours?

When Congress fails to pass promised tax reforms, the fact that no one could know how it would affect Trump’s personal fortune will surely have played a role in the failure. In whose interest was the bill drawn, his or ours?

How deep and in which direction does the unethical murk seep? We can only assume the worst.

This story was originally published April 25, 2017 at 5:01 AM with the headline "Trumpworld USA’s murky depths."