Fresh off the troubling news that Vice President Mike Pence went out of his way in Ireland–three hours out of his way–to find a Trump property to spend taxpayer funds on, we now find out that through his Great America Committee PAC, he has also spent roughly a quarter of a million ($224,000) at Trump’s properties.
There are a lot of concerns, valid ones, that President Trump is using his office to enrich himself and his family. You don’t have to take Yours Truly’s word for it because several prominent people have repeated the same assertion, most notably Richard Painter, who was Ethics Chief in former President George W Bush’s administration.
Richard Painter, the former chief ethics attorney for President George W. Bush, has slammed Vice President Mike Pence for staying at a hotel owned by President Donald Trump. “He is not entitled to milk the taxpayer.” https://t.co/UYIbP7Shuv
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) September 4, 2019
There is no other way to read VP Pence’s unfortunate actions other than to conclude that he is trying desperately hard to ingratiate himself to a President who is willfully using his office for profit. Pence is fully aware that there are a lot of concerns about Trump violating the Emoluments Clause and that several lawsuits have even been filed over this, including one by congressional Democrats. Any reasonable public official would therefore know that steering funds (private or public) towards Trump’s properties while he is still President and not fully divested from such businesses, creates the quintessential “appearance of impropriety”. VP Pence is fully aware of this but like many modern day Republicans, the desire to appease Trump overrides his better judgement–a sad state of affairs indeed.
Bottom line folks, as Yours Yours Truly stated after VP Pence’s Ireland stunt, the brazen corruption of the Trump administration is not normal and the only way we can prevent him and his cronies from normalizing it is if we scream about it. We must let VP Pence and other enablers know that we are not only watching, but that we are also enraged by their actions. History will look very kindly to Richard Painter and others who have refused to normalize this brazen corruption.
For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.
You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com