The Biggest Criminal in D.C. Right Now Is Trump

The ironies ricochet in every direction. The only reason we don’t see Trump referred to regularly in print as a convicted felon is that the word felonoffends civil libertarians; the nation’s most powerful scourge against wokeism turns out, preposterously, to be its greatest beneficiary. Trump is nobody’s idea of a Jean Valjean, not even his own: Trump recently stated he didn’t know whether to identify with Valjean or with his villainous nemesis, Inspector Javert. His 34 felony counts don’t make him a person who made a mistake once, or even 34 times, and deserves a second chance. He’s someone who made a mistake once, or 34 times, then got a second chance, and is using it to commit more crimes. That he’s able to do so demonstrates a lenience on the part of the Supreme Court and an impeachment-shy Republican Congress that puts the District of Columbia Superior Court to shame. Where’s Inspector Javert when you really need him?

The gaudiest of Trump’s latest D.C. crimes involve personal enrichment, in apparent violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. Qatar gave Trump a $400 million aircraft that’s being retrofitted (at a cost of another $400 million) into a replacement for Air Force One; when Trump leaves office, the aircraft will transfer to Trump’s presidential library. Qatar also agreed to allow Trump to build a golf resort there. If these twin agreements don’t violate the foreign emoluments clause (which reads, “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State”), then it’s hard to imagine what does.

Nobody expects Trump will be called to account anytime soon because the Supreme Court last year gave the president ludicrously broad and ahistorical immunity from prosecution in connection with his official actions. It’s much the same with Trump’s various crypto scams, which two months ago prompted Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky to tell The Guardian, “I have never seen such open corruption in any modern government anywhere.” By comparison, we have seen violent crime before in the District, back in the 1990s, when the joke was that “D.C.” stood for “Dodge City.” I was here. Believe me, it was much worse then.