Ethics

Oversight Chairman Doesn’t Care if Trump Profits Off the Presidency

Written by SK Ashby

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is a man who saw Benghazi in his morning breakfast cereal, but Trump's obvious conflicts of interest and ethical violations aren't exactly blowing his skirt up.

Chaffetz spoke to The Atlantic and said he's not concerned that Trump is profiting off the presidency because he's already rich.

On a recent afternoon in his Capitol Hill office, I read through a litany of headlines detailing potential entanglements between President Trump’s business and his administration with the congressman. As he listened, Chaffetz leaned back in his chair—jacket off, an ankle resting casually on one knee. One of the stories I flagged reported that online sales had skyrocketed for the first daughter’s clothing line after Kellyanne Conway went on TV and urged Americans to “buy Ivanka’s stuff.” I asked Chaffetz if he was concerned about Trump reaping financial rewards from his presidency, but he just shrugged.

He’s already rich,” Chaffetz said. “He’s very rich. I don’t think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more. I just don’t see it like that.

Chaffetz may not "see it like that," but it's his constitutional duty to investigate it.

Trump has been rich his entire life, but that never stopped him from cheating and stealing from others in a life-long series of attempts to attain more gold-plated toilets.

You could make a very convincing case that Trump sought the presidency for the explicit purpose of making money as everything we know about Trump's finances indicate he was on the brink of ruin before running for office. And that would be familiar territory for Trump because he has self-immolated multiple times over the past 40 years and each time he was bailed out by a third party. His father bailed him out when his first business venture failed and, more recently, he was bailed out by Deutsche Bank after American banks refused to do business with him. Trump owes hundreds of million of dollars of debt to foreign banks.

If Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat were in Trump's position, Chaffetz would leave no stone unturned. But in this case, he won't even pretend that he cares.