Candidate Donald Trump, you will recall, promised to bring only “the best people” into his administration. Well, thus far 43 percent of high-level staff have quit in disgrace, been fired or moved elsewhere in the administration. Trump denies that the exits of so many of his senior staff from the White House is a sign of chaos.
Candidate Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” but his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, received a substantial loan for his family’s real estate company after he met multiple times with fat cats at the White House. No less shameless, after a year as senior adviser to the president, Kushner could not get a top-secret security clearance, meaning he cannot be trusted to keep America’s sensitive intelligence safe from our foes.
And Trump’s former staff secretary, Rob Porter, also could not be trusted with sensitive intelligence because of abuse accusations from his ex-wives, while Porter’s girlfriend and Trump’s soon-to-be departing communications director, Hope Hicks, admitted to a House panel investigating Russian meddling that she has told “white lies” to protect Trump.
Both Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and a former foreign policy adviser to his 2016 campaign, George Papadopoulos, are under indictment for lying to the FBI about their Russian contacts. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe will bring disgrace on any and all who served this president.
Five current and former Trump Cabinet members have faced investigations over travel expenses. Trump’s White House is mired in sleaze and chaos, the president’s denials notwithstanding.
Both as candidate and as president, Trump has repeatedly claimed there was “no collusion” with the Russians, yet the Russia probe continues toward possibly finding that members of Trump’s campaign team, including Donald Jr. and Kushner, embraced Russians who claimed to have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. What the dossier assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele asserted — “extensive conspiracy between Trump’s campaign team and the Kremlin” along with the Russian cyber crime of hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails — is slowly being confirmed by the Mueller investigation, adding credence to the suspicion that many of Steele’s other claims might also be true.
Candidate Trump promised “transparency,” yet the fact-checker for the Washington Post has cataloged nearly 2,400 outright lies or misleading claims that President Trump has made during his first 400 days in office. Equally disturbing, Trump’s personal lawyer has admitted paying $130,000 to a porn star and alleged former paramour of the president in order to keep her quiet, and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal claims that $150,000 was the price to buy her silence about a lengthy affair with Trump. Meanwhile, one of the 15 women who claim Trump sexually assaulted them is suing the denier-in-chief for defamation.
Trump’s credibility is on the line, or, better said, well below the line. Trump’s recent flip-flops on comprehensive immigration reform, gun control and legalizing recreational marijuana show an utter lack of conviction and indifference to principle. He either tells people what he thinks they want to hear, or takes a position based on the last argument he heard. Trump, quite simply, cannot be trusted.
Gen. George Marshall famously declared that leaders should “stop setting our sights by the light of each passing ship; instead we must set our course by the stars.” Marshall was one of the great leaders of the 20th century because he was a man of moral principle, while Trump, recently pegged as the worst president in American history by the American Political Science Association, is a moral relativist for whom gaining personal political advantage trumps all considerations of right and wrong, let alone the public good.
Roger Bowen is a selectman in Gouldsboro.
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