Editor's Note: S.V. Dáte is a senior White House correspondent for HuffPost and the author of The Useful Idiot, an examination into Donald Trump's corruption of the Republican party and his failed management of the coronavirus pandemic.
Dáte earned national attention and acclaim in August for asking Donald Trump if he regretted lying so much to the American people, a question the president refused to answer. On Saturday, Dáte wrote a "brief dissertation on Trump's corruption," over 9 tweets on his Twitter account. MaxNewsToday has assembled these tweets and reprinted them as one easy-to-read editorial as a public service to the nation. His tweetstorm has been edited for clarity.
A BRIEF DISSERTION ON TRUMP’S CORRUPTION One place where journalism clearly has failed us during the past four years is in describing Trump’s personal corruption.
We’re trained to be cautious with pejorative words, so we didn’t want to use it. Trump took advantage of that.
When a lobbyist or CEO who wants something from the federal government books a hotel room or has a meal or buys a drink at Trump International Hotel in D.C., knowing full well that some of that money is going to wind up in Trump’s pocket, THAT IS CORRUPTION.
When Trump continues to accept money from lobbyists and CEOs who want something from the federal government, THAT IS CORRUPTION.
When Trump insists on frequenting his own properties when he travels, knowing that federal employees must stay with him and that some of that money winds up in his own pocket, THAT IS CORRUPTION.
Mind you, that’s not just my opinion. That is literally the dictionary definition of corruption. If a county or state or any other federal official had done these things, that person could be prosecuted and imprisoned.
Do people honestly not understand this?
Trump is immune from prosecution because he is president. But what he is doing is just straight-up illegal in just about every jurisdiction in this country.
And, yet, when this is covered at all, it is couched with “critics say there is a conflict of interest….”
NO.
A conflict of interest would be if the friend of a brother-in-law were profiting. This is open-and-shut corruption. Period.
I sometimes wonder if Trump really were to shoot someone on 5th Avenue, what the coverage would be. “The president appears to have shot someone on the street. Critics suggest this was an overreach of executive power.”
This timidity with the English language extended to other areas. Perfect example: Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election.
NO.
They didn’t play some harmless pranks. They actively worked to get Donald Trump elected.