Give Me Little Sign

Here's something curious from David F. Brooks ("The Lawyers Who Did Not Break"):

The S.D.N.Y. investigation seems to be zeroing in on the $107 million Trump inauguration extravaganza. From the hints dropped by the subpoenas, one gets the impression that the inauguration was a shambolic grabfest in which people with money tried to turn it into power and people who suddenly had power tried to turn it into money.

Some legal experts believe the inauguration is being aggressively probed as a racketeering operation — a continuing criminal enterprise, complete with mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and the rest.

So why aren’t the legal authorities wilting? One explanation: institutions and character. The legal institutions instill codes of excellence that are strong enough to take the heat.

I guess the obvious Big Thing here is the acknowledgment of a nexus of criminality in Trumplandia that really deserves investigation, like there's something bad about that. Last May ("Donald Trump's Lizard Wisdom"), Brooks was asking  us to consider the bright side of Trump's mob connections:

The morning after

"You have one day to make every dream you've ever dreamed for your family come true," said Trump in Raleigh on Monday, but every dream the good people of Raleigh have ever dreamed for their families is not going to come true.

There won't be a wall, either, or a ban on Muslims entering the US or any "vetting" of entering Muslims that's any more extreme than what already exists. And they're not going to "lock her up", either, because the defeated candidate hasn't in fact committed any crimes.

None of the things Donald Trump has promised on his own account in his Reverend Ike messages ("You can't lose with the stuff I use," Reverend Ike used to say) is going to happen, the nice ones or the terrifying ones. They are impossible and silly ideas. Where was he planning to put that wall, with respect to the Rio Grande? But...