The pro-corruption party
The GOP in Congress refuses to hold Republicans accountable.
The problem is not just that Trump is corrupt. It’s that Republicans in Congress won’t hold him accountable—for anything. We’ve always known that Trump and his family are a bunch of grifters, but until recently, Republicans insisted that they were an honest political party. They aren’t.
The GOP has become a fundamentally dishonest party. They don’t just lie to the American people, they lie to themselves. After decades of consuming propaganda on Fox News, talk radio, and right-wing media outlets, they believe their own spin. They have replaced loyalty to the Constitution with fealty to Trump.
Trump is running the most brazenly corrupt presidency since Warren Harding. He’s now taking a bribe from Qatar in the form of Boeing 747 luxury jet. Despite seeming to be in clear violation of the Constitution’s Emolument Clause, Attorney General Pam Bondi says the gift is legal. Of course, Bondi was a lobbyist for Qatar before she joined the administration.
The Qatari airliner comes at a time when the Trump family is seeking to put a Trump resort in Qatar. They’ve entered into a deal with the Qatari government and a Saudi Arabian firm to build it. His first trip abroad is to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The whole episode stinks to high hell.
Fortunately, the corruption is even too much for some MAGA influencers. Laura Loomer blasted Trump for accepting the gift. Ben Shapiro went on a rant about taking “sacks of goodies” from people who support terrorist organizations. Shapiro also called out Trump’s crypto scheme that allows anonymous donors to funnel money to the president. So far, several companies that are looking for tariff exceptions have spent millions on Trump meme coins in what sure looks like bribes.
A few Senators followed the lead of the influencers, including Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Eventually, even Senate Majority Leader John Thune criticized the deal, though not until he saw the backlash from people like Loomer and Shapiro. So much for leadership.
Other Republicans fell back into their defensive postures. Thom Tillis says he doesn’t have a problem with the corruption. Of course, Tillis is trying to get back on Trump’s good side after sinking the nomination of Ed Martin for US Attorney. Tillis won’t forgive the January 6 insurrectionists who tried to kill him, but he’ll give a pass to a foreign power bribing the president.
We still don’t know whether Trump will get the plane, but the episode highlights the GOP’s aversion to accountability, at least for their own side. Republicans have complained about the liberal media for years, but the conservative media and the GOP have refused to hold Republicans accountable for bad behavior. Fox News would never call out Trump’s corruption while the mainstream media that conservatives detest helped bring down New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and the Democratic-dominated state is trying to ban him from holding public office ever again. The two parties are not the same.
It’s hard to imagine Republicans ever holding Trump or any of the GOP leadership accountable for anything. Donald Trump is president again because Mitch McConnell and the GOP Senators gave him pass for January 6. They believed that his actions alone would keep him from office. They underestimated the power of the conservative propaganda network to keep conspiracy theories alive and they underestimated the weakness in their own ranks to put country before party.
Republicans are accessories both after and before the fact. They’ve enabled Trump’s corruption by normalizing his behavior. Even when he’s blatantly exploiting his office, they turn a blind eye. They’ve refused to police their own while attacking a media that tries to hold the powerful accountable. They’ve become the pro-corruption party.
There is a criminal in our White House and many republicans that are accomplished.
Time to call the GOP what has become: the Grifters and Outlaws Party.