# Trump scandal and corruption omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 13, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880 "2016-11-13T18:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/61 "2016-11-14T22:15:16Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > More on Trump’s conflict of interests > > [Vox says it’s the biggest conflict of interests in US history](http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/14/13608960/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interest-corruption) > > That’s a strong statement. > > But Rudy says Herr Drumpf can do all of this, no problem. If I were president and I wanted to enrich myself, I wouldn’t bother with trying to shift policies that might triple the size of my billion dollar empire. I would sell my influence to large multinationals and foreign countries for a thousand times that amount. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/62 "2016-11-14T22:28:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They can’t repeal it without 60 Republican senators. > > The POTUS can TRY to direct prosecutorial discretion, I doubt Trump could get very far even if he wanted to. > > He can try, but what does he do if Mexico declines? > > He will have a hell of a time crafting a law that meets strict scrutiny. > > Making medicare benefits means tested, turns it into a welfare program. Premium support medicare already sort of exists as medicare part C. > > You mean if the RMB is undervalued. Tariffs are an appropriate response to currency manipulation. > > One country (even one as big as the USA) backing out of the deal does not really undercut the deal too much. It will be about as effective as the US embargo of Cuba except in this case, the Cuba in question is far away and has oil that everyone wants. > > With who? The old people on medicare that voted for him? What? You mean to tell me he either CAN’T or WON’T do a single thing that he promised? But but but… What about his “straight talk”? What will his supporters do? sorry - rhetorical question. His supporters will of course blame the media, the elite, the Clintons and Obama for Trumps failure to deliver on a single promise. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/63 "2016-11-14T22:30:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If I were president and I wanted to enrich myself, I wouldn’t bother with trying to shift policies that might triple the size of my billion dollar empire. I would sell my influence to large multinationals and foreign countries for a thousand times that amount. Is the possibility that he is not using the method you describe supposed to be evidence that he isn’t enriching himself some other way? Might it not be that he is better at this than you are and knows what will work better in the long run? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/64 "2016-11-14T22:50:57Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They can’t repeal it without 60 Republican senators. They could repeal big chunks of it through the budget reconciliation loophole. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/65 "2016-11-14T23:12:01Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > More on Trump’s conflict of interests > > [Vox says it’s the biggest conflict of interests in US history](http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/14/13608960/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interest-corruption) > > That’s a strong statement. > > But Rudy says Herr Drumpf can do all of this, no problem. Okay, now I’ll call you out for being an asshole. Read the goddamned thread you started and you’ll see that Rudy Giuliani is correct when he asserts that conflict of interest laws do not apply to the POTUS (or to the Veep). Try and be more accurate, please. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/66 "2016-11-14T23:14:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, then he won’t be on Wall Street any more! Besides which, after he elevated the King of Blightbart, Steve Bannon the Pork Cannon, to Presidential Elite status, what’s left to say or do? Am I the only person here who knows that Steve Bannon made his initial money working for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/67 "2016-11-14T23:19:15Z")
You may be the only one who cares, unless you can tell me why, then there might be two. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/68 "2016-11-14T23:58:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My point that “Conflict of interest laws do not apply,” is unfairly summarized as “Guiliani says Trump can do anything,” seems to be lost by your proposed filter. > > Is there a friendlier, less assholish way I should have pointed that out? > > See, you’re focusing on the fact that the laws don’t apply. > > I’m focusing on the fact that Guliani didn’t say “Trump can do anything.” Personally, I think it’s implicit. Though, if you must be explicit: “Giuliani merely said that conflict of interest laws do not apply to the President. And he is correct.” The thing that is annoying is your faux-Socratic method, like you are some ivory-tower elitist coming down to teach the plebeians. Or maybe it’s that you’re treating us like a witness on the stand, while you are a defense attorney. You ask leading questions rather than just say what you mean. It comes off as you assuming that we are hostile towards you. (You know, the same way that a prosecutor can get someone declared a hostile witness and then use the same leading questions). Whatever it is, it is very annoying. And we’re all near the edge here due to Trump winning. I mean, I yelled at my mom on election day and said some absolutely horrible things. I hurt maybe the one person I am closest to in this world over this goddamn fucking election. (And I don’t use actual profanity (god, damn, jesus, etc.) very often. I consider it worse than fuck/shit/etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/69 "2016-11-15T00:11:47Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You may be the only one who cares, unless you can tell me why, then there might be two. Steve Bannon is incontrovertibly tied to Wall Street. It’s where he made his money, where he knows people and has influence. He’s another in the long list of people Mr. Trump is bringing into his administration who are exactly the people he said needed to be repudiated. Ya know: an example of conservative hypocrisy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/70 "2016-11-15T03:04:52Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, then he won’t be on Wall Street any more! Besides which, after he elevated the King of Blightbart, Steve Bannon the Pork Cannon, to Presidential Elite status, what’s left to say or do? How about … [Rudy Giuliani as Secretary of State](https://twitter.com/AP/status/798332268884488192)? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/71 "2016-11-15T05:52:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Is there a friendlier, less assholish way I should have pointed that out? “Should,” or “could?” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/72 "2016-11-15T06:51:39Z")
Giuliani or Bolton? Anthrax or leprosy? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/73 "2016-11-15T07:42:22Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Or just go ahead and be confrontational (god knows that’s usually my choice) The approach does incorporate a certain satisfaction at times. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/74 "2016-11-15T10:25:34Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Giuliani or Bolton? Anthrax or leprosy? Bolton I think would make a fantastic Secretary of State. Giuilani has no foreign policy experience that i know of. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/75 "2016-11-15T10:47:47Z")
Linda McMahon being considered for Secrtary of Commerce. I was wondering when Trump’s relationship with the McMahon family would be a thing: [http://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/linda-mcmahon-reportedly-under-consideration-secretary-commerce-224576](http://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/linda-mcmahon-reportedly-under-consideration-secretary-commerce-224576) Now I love wrestling, but the McMahon family are swindlers of the first order. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/76 "2016-11-15T10:49:14Z")
And a bonus article from the Washington Post, What Donald Trump Learned about Politics from Pro Wrestling: > **[Perspective | What Donald Trump learned about politics from pro wrestling](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/what-donald-trump-learned-about-politics-from-pro-wrestling/)** > > Sometimes, the heel wins. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/77 "2016-11-15T11:33:25Z")
At present, only two countries, Angola and Liberia, have the president’s family in the government. Trump wants to make the USA the third. He has asked that his three oldest children be given the highest level security clearance. They will be running his business and at the same time participating in government. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/78 "2016-11-15T11:47:01Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Nixon famously told David Frost, “When the President does it, that means that it is _not_ illegal.” Now, do Bricker and/or Rudolph Giuliani want to look to Richard Nixon as their model for appropriate presidential behavior? This is not cogent argument. Nixon was right in the sense that there are things that the President can do legally, but would be illegal for anyone else to do. Imagine a pardon, for example: the Secretary of Commerce cannot issue a pardon for mail fraud. If he did, and a court gave it effect, that would be illegal, but if the President issued that same pardon, in the same words, it would be legal. Now, does **Dewey Finn** really want to claim that President has no pardon power? Of course not – that would be a wrong summary of what Dewey Finn said. But then again, Dewey Finn’s argument was flawed in another way: he takes a statement made by Nixon in the context of specific set of facts, and suggests a far far different, and wider, application, and THEN suggests that it somehow invalidates what I’m saying, merely because Nixon said it and we all know Nixon is bad. For context: > [@](#): > > Frost: Pulling some of our discussions together, as it were; speaking of the Presidency and in an interrogatory filed with the Church Committee, you stated, quote, “It’s quite obvious that there are certain inherently government activities, which, if undertaken by the sovereign in protection of the interests of the nation’s security are lawful, but which if undertaken by private persons, are not.” What, at root, did you have in mind there? > > Nixon: Well, what I, at root I had in mind I think was perhaps much better stated by Lincoln during the War between the States. Lincoln said, and I think I can remember the quote almost exactly, he said, “Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional, could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation.” > > Now that’s the kind of action I’m referring to. Of course in Lincoln’s case it was the survival of the Union in wartime, it’s the defense of the nation and, who knows, perhaps the survival of the nation. > > Frost: But there was no comparison was there, between the situation you faced and the situation Lincoln faced, for instance? > > Nixon:This nation was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president. Now it’s true that we didn’t have the North and the South— > > Frost: But when you said, as you said when we were talking about the Huston Plan, you know, “If the president orders it, that makes it legal”, as it were: Is the president in that sense—is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law? > > Nixon: No, there isn’t. There’s nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven’t read every word, every jot and every title, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we’re all talking about. I’m not endorsing Nixon’s argument, but it should be clear he wasn’t saying that no law ever applies to the President. He was claiming that there were certain extraordinary circumstances that allowed the President to disregard certain law in war time. That is arguable, but at least let’s identify the correct claim to argue against. Guliani claimed that the conflict of interest laws, specifically, did not apply to the President. That’s not arguable. It’s black-letter law. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/79 "2016-11-15T11:49:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Suggestion for less assholic way to point out what you said. > “BigAppleBucky says, ‘Giuliani thinks Trump is allowed to do anything.’ > That is a misleading and inaccurate reflection of what Giuliani’s tweet says.” Honestly. In the alternate universe in which I posted that, what’s the reaction? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880/80 "2016-11-15T11:53:38Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How about … [Rudy Giuliani as Secretary of State](https://twitter.com/AP/status/798332268884488192)? Of the names that I’ve seen, this is one of the least objectionable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-scandal-and-corruption-omnibus-thread/771880.md?page=5)