By Martin Falbisoner – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.
Oh, the excuses for allowing Trump to violate the constitution keep coming in, each stupider than the last. The latest from Tom Cole (R-OK) is that George Washington kept his house while serving as president, so it’s all good, you betcha. Has anyone told Donny he has to give up his gold-plated apartment? No. Has anyone said Donny can’t manage his personal residences? No. The hypocrisy of republicans continues to float over everything, as their lies and excuses get weaker and weaker.
While ethics expertswarn not divesting will likely create an unconstitutional conflict, Congressional Republicans are apparently not concerned.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said on Wednesday that he does not think Trump needs to disentangle himself. “To be fair to him, he’s not a guy who made his money out of doing business with the government, particularly,” he observed.
Cole added that he thinks Trump’s team is “trying to be careful,” because “opponents will try to put the worst aspersions” on anything he does. “I don’t expect the family to get out of a family business, for goodness sake. I mean, you read much history, George Washington was still pretty active in managing Mount Vernon when he was president of the United States.”
Washington’s Virginia estate was hardly comparable to Trump’s self-proclaimed $10 billion portfolio.
OK, who has standing/power to do anything about the legal status of this? Whether criminal or civil suit, anything that would actually go to court.
No one can go to court until Trump is sworn in as president, and the violations of the constitution become reality.
…and no one would go to court after Trump is sworn because Trump would have to be impeached first and only the House can impeach a president and the Senate must ratify that decision. And since both of those are controlled by GOP your only option would the Supreme Court, which will get a Trump nominated judge and will have a GOP majority as well.
That’s the fun thing about constitutions: They’re great at preventing any progress and stopping minor infractions, but if enough people want to break it then it has all the stopping power of of a two hundred year old fart in the wind.