The Trump White House is tainted by criminality and chaos
Donald Trump’s White House has become a revolving door for staffers and members of the administration. Seemingly every day a new person resigns or is fired for no apparent reason. Continuing on this new presidential tradition, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just been fired. The stories are conflicting with the White House alleging he was told to leave last Friday, while insiders are saying it was only decided on March 13 and was possibly a result of Tillerson’s Russia remarks. Tillerson himself says he found out only through the President’s Twitter. Though this story would seem outlandish in any other administration, incidents like this have become commonplace in the Trump Administration.
Whenever Secretary Tillerson’s successor goes into meetings with foreign leaders, his credibility will be diminished as someone who could be here today and gone tomorrow. https://t.co/DdyLCbpUiG
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 13, 2018
In just over a year Trump has fired nine high ranking officials, and many more have resigned. It appears that anytime someone stands up to Trump, questions his decisions or engages or investigates his possible criminal activities, they are sacked. Notable examples include: Gary Cohn, who resigned after speaking out against tariffs on aluminum and steel imports as Trump’s economic advisor, top campaign advisor and monster Steve Bannon and FBI Director James Comey for not pledging loyalty.
Right now America has a commander-in-chief with the intention of becoming a despot. He has praised the leadership of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China multiple times, even saying, “Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday,” in response to Xi Jinping consolidating power. While the judicial branch has done a mediocre job keeping him in check for the nation, no holds have been barred inside his administration. Examining his pattern in office and his praise for China, it is clear Trump possesses despotic aspirations. He lacks the skill or subtlety to do it, but will stop at nothing to assert himself as “the big man on campus.”
His dealings to achieve this have also come under scrutiny. Stormy Daniels’ issues aside, things are not looking good legally for Trump. Tuesday, Robert Mueller released an update on the Russian investigations. Names listed for questioning include Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions and Trump himself. These questions relate to meetings in Trump-owned properties with Russian agents, hacks at the Democratic National Convention and the transferring of money between possible Russian organizations to the Trump Organization facilitated through Deutsche Bank. Many are predicting Jeff Sessions will be fired soon, possibly in retaliation for recusing himself from the Russian investigation. Though nothing is concrete yet, these charges and questionings are near-damning.
Things that make you go hmmmm…
Rex Tillerson called Trump a ‘fucking moron’ in 2017 and was not fired.
Rex Tillerson spoke out against Russia and was fired the next day.
— Indivisible Network (@IndivisibleNet) March 14, 2018
The jury is out with whether or not Trump himself is directly implicated in these Russian dealings, but it is almost sure that at least some of his staffers and advisors are. The Trump White House is chaotic, messy and potentially a criminal enterprise right now. With a president acting more and more autocratic as investigations close in, no one can be certain of exactly what will happen next.
This is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Tulane Hullabaloo. Quinn is a freshman at Newcomb-Tulane College. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Horace Lee Mitchell, Jr. • Mar 19, 2018 at 3:05 pm
I thought I’d “speak my mind” while we still have that right in the U.S.
I have disliked Mr. Trump since his attack on Senator John McCain. Mr. Trump said he “Didn’t like people who’d been captured.” in reference to the Senator’s captivity in North Vietnam. Personally, I don’t like people who lacked the courage to serve their country.
After completing my undergraduate work (at Tulane), I spent a number of years in State and Federal law enforcement. That included several years assigned to the US/Mexico Border. My experiences in those years left me with two valuable insights.
First, the great strength of the United States is derived from and preserved by being a nation governed by laws not men.
I believe that Mr. Trump works daily to destroy that. He lies, cheats, and steals with regularity and has avoided any penalty because he manipulates people with promises and threats. I have seen members of the House and Senate I believed to be men of principle stand in silence while Mr. Trump committed one disgusting act after another. Now they are silent on providing protections for the Special Council.
My second insight relates to the US/Mexico Border. On the map it seems like a black line. When you work and live on the border you see many shades of gray. The people of Mexico are not rapists and murderers. The vast majority are good, honest people who I admire greatly.
Some things I recall from the border may seem trivial, but remain with me as reminders of the border and the people. For example: we’ve all seen signs in restaurant lavatories which read “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.” I was washing my hands in the lavatory of a border restaurant once when I noticed their sign. It read: “Employees must wash hands before returning to work, the law requires it, but decency demands it.”
I knew several US Border Patrol and US Customs agents who were regularly stopped on their days off by agents who didn’t know them. Many, possibly most, U.S. Government employees who work on the border have family living on both sides.
I was once coming back from Mexico along with a Special Agent. We’d been arranging training sessions for Mexican officers. I was just waived through at the border, my colleague was detained and his government ID questioned before he was allowed to pass. This was based solely upon his being Hispanic. I was troubled by it, he was not. Despite being a U.S. citizen, born in the U.S., commissioned in the Army, decorated in Vietnam, and a Federal law enforcement officer, he had been treated like that all his life on the border.
If there’s an answer to how to prevent good people are mistreated I don’t know what it is. I do know that it is not a simplistic, politically handy wall.
My suggestion would be to stop illegal entry by people seeking work: If they are needed make it easier for them to do it legally, balanced by severe penalties for abusing the system. A system of regulating the transfer of money out of the country would seem the easiest fix.
As to drug traffic, if there’s no market it goes away. Fixing that needs to be done by our society generally not just our law enforcement.
Returning to Mr. Trump: The first question a physician asks himself before treating anyone is: Are my hands clean? Tulane might ask that before taking up the topic of the U.S. being infected by Mr. Trump’s corruption, nepotism, and incompetence.
The current Mrs. Gingrich was named Ambassador to the Vatican to get former Speaker Gingrich on board the Trump train. Her bio indicates she was having an affair with the married Newt Gingrich for years before his divorce. Not something you’d normally see in someone selected to deal with the Vatican. Mr. Gingrich (PhD 71) a noted Republican was brought aboard as faculty by Tulane (as was Democrat James Carvil). Did US taxpayers get the best deal for their money by putting the current Mrs. Gingrich in the job? Did Tulane really get the best deal for their students in hiring Gingrich and Carvil, or was it an effort to gain influence by proximity?