Detours and Diversions

The revelation about Trump apparently using his position as commander-in-chief to drive military traffic to the failing Prestwick airport and his failing Turnberry resort, if that's what it is, should be seen i n the context of the $400,000 ProPublica found had been spent by defense department civilian staff, state and and commerce departments, and other agencies at Trump properties in the first six months of 2017 alone—if they kept up the same pace, that would amount to something over $2.5 million by now. It's starting to look like a pattern, if you hadn't noticed:

Consider a trip last year by Matthew Snyder, who works for the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, in Colorado. Snyder traveled to Washington, D.C., for 11 days in April 2017 to attend managerial training. He stayed first at a Marriott in Gaithersburg, Md. (where NIST is headquartered), and then at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Both rooms cost $242 per night [the Trump room, a suite, discounted from a listed rate of $740 or more], and both were covered by his per diem for lodging. (According to federal guidelines, $242 is the maximum nightly amount the government will reimburse for visits to the D.C. area in the spring season.)...

Snyder said in an interview that he chose to stay at the Trump hotel because it was within walking distance of a conference he attended, and that its proximity allowed him to save the cost of renting a car.

But several hotels in a six-block radius provide cheaper rates, including the Hotel Harrington, which sits only a block north of the Trump hotel and charges $175 for a single room. And receipts show that Snyder rented a car and racked up $336 in valet parking charges during his stay at the Trump International.

When asked about cheaper nearby hotels and the parking costs, Snyder wrote in an email: “I could offer clarity, but I choose not to.” In the end, Snyder charged about $2,740 to a government charge card at the Trump International over five days, including room service and valet parking.

"I could offer clarity." The conference was in DC, but the training was obviously in Gaithersburg, so he was driving from downtown Washington to Maryland and back most days; he was lying. Mike Pence's appointments were in Dublin but his hotel was 250 km on the other side of the island in County Clare, where his grandmother came from. The Washington Post editorialized,

Mr. Pence told reporters Tuesday he had always planned a trip to Doonbeg, because he has familial roots in the town, and that staying at the 120-room Trump resort made sense for his large staff. But that is not a satisfactory explanation for staying across the country from Dublin, the nation’s capital and the site of the meetings he is ostensibly in Ireland to attend. Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, argued that, after Mr. Trump canceled his trip to Poland, leaving Mr. Pence to fill in for him, the scrambled schedule limited the vice president’s options. Yet he also admitted that Mr. Trump suggested the stay at Doonbeg.

Trumpworld’s ethical carelessness has steadily spread from Mr. Trump himself, who began his presidency by refusing to disclose his basic financial information and properly distance himself from his privately held business, to the rest of his administration. Cabinet official after Cabinet official has resigned because they wasted taxpayer dollars on expensive trips and blandishments. Now, the vice president brings a gaggle of staff to a resort the president owns, at the president’s urging, and he shrugs it off as unavoidable.

Cummings has asked him for clarity, and documentation of how much the detour cost the government (Pence paid for himself and family members but taxpayers are on the hook for his staff and security detail):

"The Committee does not believe that US taxpayer funds should be used to personally enrich President Trump, his family, and his companies," Congressman Cummings wrote. 

According to letter: "The White House has not made public how much the Vice President’s trip cost the American taxpayer, or benefited the Trump Organisation, but based on previous investigations by the Government Accountability Office, the bill could be significant."

"President Trump stayed at his property in Ireland in June, which cost the American people an estimated $3.6 million," the letter stated. (via Raidió Teilifís Éireann)

Trump's two-day trip to the Doonbeg resort was worth nine years of the presidential salary he's so proud of donating to the government, and the route—from London to Paris via Shannon airport in western Ireland—was another singular detour, hundreds of miles out of the way for Marine One, though he had a meeting in the airport with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Varadkar properly refused to go to the golf course and Trump improperly refused to go to Dublin). And then there was that detour to Scotland for the C-17 transport where they didn't go to Ramstein (where the crew could have spent the nights virtually for free) but drove 30-odd miles to stay at a "Luxury Collection Resort" where dinner was too expensive to be covered by the per diem, and all the money went to the coffers of the Trump Organization.

I hope the strategy of the Cummings committee is what it's starting to look like, part of a general strategy in which the House really takes over the narrative. I noticed people making fun of the Judiciary Committee for scheduling hearings on the violations of campaign law in payoffs to Trump girlfriends for which Michael Cohen is doing prison time and Donald Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator (BooMan called it "incredibly stupid", and Steve doesn't think much of it either) but that's not all Judiciary is doing; I find this morning that

The panel could vote as early as Wednesday on a resolution to spell out the parameters of its investigation. The precise language is still being hammered out inside the committee and with House leaders. A draft of the resolution is expected to be released Monday morning....

In addition to probing potential obstruction of justice by Trump, the Judiciary Committee is weighing allegations that Trump directed hush money payments to women accusing him of extramarital affairs in the weeks before the 2016 election, as well as evidence that Trump has sought to steer U.S. and foreign government spending to his luxury resorts, raising questions about whether he has violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause.

And Nadler has rewritten the rules for committee hearings to make them more like those of the Watergate investigation so that Gym Jordan and Matt Gaetz and the other pit bulls can't divert the discourse every five minutes and some lawyer can start working it the way the great Sam Dash did:

The resolution, sources say, is expected to make clear that future House Judiciary hearings can be conducted in ways different from most congressional hearings since the panel is considering impeachment. For instance, the resolution is expected to authorize committee staff counsels to question witnesses, something that is typically not done at congressional hearings.

The resolution also will spell out how secret grand jury information can be reviewed in closed-door sessions. And it will say that the President's counsel can respond in writing to the committee. (CNN)

I like the developing theme of Trump's insatiable greed at the center of the impeachment-or-whatever, as he works to steer those taxpayer dollars to his businesses (in violation of the domestic emoluments clause) in all these cases we've been looking at, first, and then outward to Other People's Money, from donations to his "charitable" foundation to Republican campaign funds and PACs (Mike Pence's Great America Committee has spent $224,000 at Trump properties since 2017, mostly at the Washington hotel and restaurant) to cabinet members (attorney general Barr's incredible decision to throw himself a $30,000 ceilidh with open bar at the same hotel, 8 December).

And then to look at his continual quest for foreign money (with the attendant issues of laundering and tax evasion and bank fraud) in that light, from the mysterious golf course purchases between 2009 and 2014 ("We have all the funding we need out of Russia," Eric explained helpfully) through the lunatic idea of holding next year's G7 summit at the Doral in Miami-Dade. Which brings us back to the $300-million Moscow Project and its murky connection to Trump's presidential campaign—Mueller's investigation seen from the angle Mueller declined to investigate, which leads to Trump the president being a tool for President Putin and the Saudi and Emirati crown princes.

Congress may be (now that the spending bill is done, as I predicted in July) on the right road at last. We could offer clarity for real.