Or what about the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to New York in 2018, during which his entourage stayed at the Trump hotel in Manhattan? They spent enough to put the property, which had been loss making, into the black for the financial quarter of the visit. Perhaps there was nowhere else to stay. But what about the 67 trademarks that have been granted to the Trump Organization from foreign governments during his presidency? China alone has granted 46 of them — more than any other country.
Or the scrapping of a bipartisan plan to relocate the FBI out of its prime central Washington location to the suburbs? The Bureau currently lives blocks away from the President’s D.C. hotel; vacating the building might have allowed a competitor hotel to move in. Hotel developers had bid on the site. President Trump was personally involved in a meeting about the building location just weeks before the announcement that it wouldn’t be relocated.
In September this year a non-profit group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington set out these and other conflicts of interest and called them corruption. They put a number on it: 3403 such breaches of conventional norms during the presidency up to that point.
And of course, we have not considered his taxes (or lack of them) or the pay-off allegedly made to a porn star before the 2016 election that, if it had been made in pursuit of winning that election, was an expense he ought to have reported.
By the way, the tax liability is hugely important and quite simple. Mr Trump appears to have claimed in the past that certain properties he owned were far more valuable when using them as collateral for loans than when valuing them for tax purposes. He has firmly denied any wrongdoing of any kind, but the way he ran his businesses creates a suspicion of fraud on a scale that would be seriously criminal if it were true.
Here we get to the guts of the pardon issue. The only pardon that really matters is the pardon Mr Trump issues to himself and his immediate family. Nobody knows if this is legal. Nobody knows if it’s possible. But plenty think he might try it.
And if he does? Yes, there are all manner of precedents that risk being set. A nation that simply ignores — or allows to be ignored — the suggestion of huge abuse of power by its commander-in-chief does not exactly radiate civic health. This is plainly in a different league to Bill’s let-off for Roger Clinton.
But there again, perhaps it would allow something useful to happen. Perhaps a pardon would triage the whole case against Mr Trump. People could get over the Bedminster Golf Course Wedding Offer — and focus instead on the things that could not be pardoned.
Because state crimes (not being the bailiwick of the Federal government) cannot be pardoned by any president, and the tax fraud case, if it were ever brought, would come in New York State. Other states could follow suit. Mr Trump (again I stress he denies all wrongdoing) would be in deep legal trouble — without all the fuss about the Saudis paying money to his hotels getting in the way. His self-pardon would do no more than clear the barnacles off the boat.
His advisers may feel that complexity is his friend as it has been during his whole business life. He will be chased by all manner of worthy seekers after justice. But will he ever be caught? I wouldn’t bet on it.
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