Skip to content
500
USA Today: “Since 2013, military investigators have documented at least 500 cases of serious misconduct among its generals, admirals and senior civilians, almost half of those instances involving personal or ethical lapses.”
“It’s hard for the United States to pursue international anticorruption and ethics initiatives when we’re not even keeping our own side of the street clean. It affects our credibility. I think we are pretty close to a laughingstock at this point.”
— Outgoing government ethics chief Walter Shaub, quoted by the New York Times.
$1.2 million
Forbes: “In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it’s clear that the course wasn’t free–that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.”
$270,000
President Trump’s Washington hotel “received roughly $270,000 in payments linked to Saudi Arabia as part of a lobbying campaign by the Gulf kingdom against a controversial piece of terrorism legislation last year,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The payments—for catering, lodging and parking—were disclosed by the public relations firm MSLGroup last week in paperwork filed with the Justice Department documenting foreign lobbying work on behalf of Saudi Arabia and other clients.”
“This is corruption, pure and simple.”
— Former Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, quoted by NBC News, on Jared Kushner’s sister promising visas to Chinese investors.
I don’t think Richard Nixon even comes close to the level of corruption we already know about Trump.
— Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean, in an interview with The Atlantic.
$2.3 million
Amount that Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses, but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, the Washington Post reports. “In cases where he diverted his own income to his foundation, tax experts said, Trump would still likely be required to pay taxes on the income. Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns.”
$12.7 million
Amount that handwritten ledgers show “in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012. … Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials,” reports the New York Times.
$900
Amount that Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi allegedly charged to his county-issued credit card to cover personal expenses that included nearly $900 at a hostess bar, the AP reports. Hawaii News Now notes subsequent investigations “discovered further purchases with the card that many called inappropriate, including at least one visit to similar hostess establishment.”
I hope it’s not half. I mean, there are a lot of people who go into public service and are in for the right reasons and to do the right thing. But it–it’s an unfortunate percentage.
— U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, quoted by the New York Observer, on the portion of New York state lawmakers who are corrupt.
