Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan Image via Wikimedia Commons)
One of President Donald Trump's favorite terms is "drain the swamp." He didn't invent the term, which was used in the past by politicians ranging from President Ronald Reagan to paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan. But he made it a prominent talking point of the MAGA movement.
The term, in a political context, refers to self-serving bureaucrats. And Never Trump conservative Mona Charen, in The Bulwark, argues that the phrase is a "bitter irony" in light of Trump's "unabashed corruption."
Charen, who served as a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan during the 1980s, recalls that the Reagan Administration carefully screened applicants for possible conflicts of interest.
"When I was being considered for a job in the Reagan White House," the conservative columnist explains in The Bulwark, "I had to reveal every cent I had ever earned from any job or investment — which was simple since I had no money — and everyone else who worked for the administration had to do the same. It was a pain, but I was happy to do it, knowing that I would be serving in an honest government."
But Trump's second presidency, Charen laments, has been characterized by "wanton, shameless profiteering from the White House."
"We learned from NOTUS last week that he went on a share-buying spree in the first months of this year, purchasing stock in companies that were about to get lucrative contracts," Charen explains. "On January 6, Trump purchased between $500,000 and $1,000,000 — financial disclosure forms require a range, not exact figures — in Nvidia stock. A week later, the Commerce Department announced permission for Nvidia to sell chips to China."
Charen continues, "He also purchased stock in AMD, another AI chip maker, right before they too were granted the right to sell in China. Also in January, Trump purchased shares of Palantir for between $65,000 and $150,000, days before that company secured a billion-dollar contract to provide services to the Department of Homeland Security."
According to Charen, Trump is also "reaching his grubby hands into the largest till in the world: the U.S. Treasury."
"Along with an apology from the IRS," Charen observes, "the arrangement would also guarantee that the IRS would never audit any member of the Trump family ever again…. The United Arab Emirates is now less corrupt than the United States. So is Uruguay. And that was before the latest orgy of plunder…. Trump's claim that he would 'drain the swamp' is a cosmic joke. His administration is an ongoing shakedown of the American people."