‘The scope of corruption ... is breathtaking.’ Schiff takes on Trump, again
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- In a floor speech, California’s senator plans to assay the president’s conflicts of interest and offer a prescription for cleansing once Trump leaves office.
- He warns against numbness or complacency in the face of the president’s abundant outrages.
There are certain truths that are self-evident to all but the willfully blind or stubbornly obtuse.
Heat is hot.
Rain is wet.
Donald Trump is the most brazenly corrupt president in the history of the United States.
The money-grubbing chief executive has raked in at least $2.2 billion during his first year back in office. He’s funneled millions of taxpayer dollars and foreign payments to his businesses. The grift, er, gift of a tricked-out Air Force One from the Qatari government — which Trump plans to keep in retirement — is only the most high-flying example of his avarice.
There’s so much more.
The notorious tax dodger filed suit against himself, allowing his complicit Department of “Justice” to engineer a flimflam settlement amounting to a get-out-of-jail free card that shields Trump and his sticky-fingered family from Internal Revenue Service oversight. He’s used his pardon power to draw contributions.
It’s so blatant and so consistent with Trump’s dodgy corporate background — a career checkered with six bankruptcies — that it’s easy to shrug off his presidential swindling as just more of the same. That’s been Trump’s political superpower: normalizing the outrageous and anesthetizing many Americans to all but the most extreme affronts. Even those have limited shock value these days.
On Thursday, California’s junior U.S. senator, Democrat Adam Schiff, will take to the floor of the chamber to assay the president’s many conflicts of interest, warn against complacency of the seen-it-all variety and offer his prescription for a cleansing once Trump slinks out of the gold-slathered Oval Office.
“The scope of the corruption we’ve seen in this administration is beyond anything we have imagined in prior years or prior administrations, “ Schiff said in a preview of his speech. “It’s really novel and breathtaking.”
Schiff is, of course, one of the president’s long-standing nemeses. As a House member, he led Trump’s first impeachment trial. His frequent criticism of the president, on the cable TV circuit and beyond, earned Schiff a slug of juvenile nicknames and other Trumpian put-downs, as well as a federal investigation — which now appears dormant — into supposed mortgage fraud.
Kitchen-table talk
Trump defenders will be quick to dismiss Schiff’s floor speech as just more overripe agitation.
Birds fly. Fish swim. Schiff attacks Trump.
But the purpose of his remarks, Schiff said, goes beyond simply enumerating the abundant examples of presidential profiteering. (It was a struggle, he said, keeping the list to a top 10.) His intent, he said, is “to bring home ... the real cost to ordinary people” of Trump’s egregious self-dealing. Explaining why — in a practical, feel-it-in-your-wallet sense — people should care.
“If a president approves a merger not because it’s good for consumers, not because it’s good for the economy, but because participants in the merger paid him millions, what’s the cost to them?” Schiff said, referring to the proposed marriage of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery and the money CBS shelled out for a flimsy lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” The settlement was widely seen as a way to smooth Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media, which is now bidding to swallow Warner Bros.
“The cost is they’re paying more for their streaming services,” Schiff said. “They’re getting laid off if they work in the industry. “
In 2024, Democrats lost the White House at least in part because they spent so much time talking about noble but abstract concepts like defending democracy and the rule of law, rather than highlighting ways they’d work to bring down the price of bacon and eggs.
Times change. Now it’s the cost of beef and gas that’s plundering paychecks.
Looking to November and beyond
Schiff insists it’s not an either/or choice. To prevail in November’s midterm elections, which means winning at least one chamber of Congress, Schiff said Democrats should discuss both affordability and Trump’s venality. He sees the two as being irrevocably entwined.
“The positive message is we are singularly focused on your cost of living,” Schiff said from his office on Capitol Hill. “We want to build more housing and bring down the cost of housing. We want to attack anti-competitive mergers of grocery stores and food companies to bring down the cost of food. We have a whole agenda that is designed to make your life more affordable.
“Why isn’t the administration doing this?” he said. “And the answer is, they’re corrupt. They’re focused on their own economic well-being. They’re doing great for themselves. They could care less about you.”
Schiff plans to introduce a number of proposed remedies. They include legislation to ban corporate executives from serving in the executive branch if they’ve been convicted of corruption or financial crimes, and a requirement that government employees recuse themselves from matters affecting the financial interests of any employer they’d worked for within the previous four years.
Although the measures stand no chance of passing in the current Congress, Schiff said “it’s important to show the American people, ‘Hey, this is what we intend to do if you give us the majority.’”
Candidates are betting on affordability as their winning midterm issue, aiming to shift a perception that Democrats deal in the abstract.
He acknowledged that the depth of presidential dishonesty, its constancy and deep weave in the fabric of this administration, can have a deadening effect: “When the guy working the teleprompter at the White House, betting on how many times the president will use a certain word in his speech, is a blip in the corruption...”
But Schiff said it’s important not to turn away or shrink from the malodor rising from Trump’s swampy Washington.
“You just have to take the time to break it down for people,” Schiff said. “I think putting things in context, trying to snap people out of the norm-shattering numbness of this administration, is a daily challenge. But it’s one that we have to undertake.”
There’s no certainly no harm in stating the truth. It’s worth trying, over and over.
What else you should be reading
The must-read: Trump, long a critic of ‘forever wars,’ may be stumbling into one with Iran
The deep dive: Unhappy with Kaiser’s medical dispute process, some patients push for state reform
The L.A. Times Special: Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking — fast
Until next time,
mzb
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that Donald Trump’s return to the White House has produced what it describes as the most brazenly corrupt presidency in U.S. history, highlighting estimates that Trump personally enriched himself by roughly $2.2 billion in his first year back in office and treated the federal government as a vehicle for his own profit.[16]
Building on previous reporting, the piece suggests Trump has funneled taxpayer money and foreign payments into his businesses, citing examples such as a customized Air Force One-style jet provided by Qatar that Trump plans to retain after leaving office, and lavish, taxpayer-funded construction projects like a gilded ballroom and triumphal arch in Washington.[16][15]
The article contends that Trump’s legal maneuvers include suing the federal government and effectively negotiating with his own Justice Department to secure favorable settlements, echoing concerns raised by ethics watchdogs and Schiff’s “Corruption Clawback Act” press materials about a tax-related settlement that would shield Trump and his family from IRS scrutiny and clawbacks.[2][6]
In portraying Trump’s conduct as systemic, the piece notes Schiff’s broader critique that Trump has reshaped the Justice Department into an instrument of personal loyalty, purging independent officials and using law enforcement both to protect allies and punish enemies, including local officials whose corruption cases were allegedly softened in exchange for policy support.[4][15]
The article emphasizes Schiff’s assertion that Trump’s corruption is not merely a matter of ethics but has tangible consequences for ordinary Americans, linking presidential self-dealing to higher consumer costs and job losses, for instance by pointing to mergers in the media and streaming industries that Schiff argues were approved to benefit Trump financially rather than to serve consumers.[6][15]
In addition, the piece presents Schiff’s political message ahead of the midterm elections: Democrats, in this view, must address both the cost-of-living crisis and Trump’s venality, with Schiff arguing that Trump’s focus on personal enrichment prevents serious action on housing, food prices, gas and healthcare, even as Democrats push bills to tackle anti-competitive mergers and expand affordable housing.[12][15]
The article describes Schiff’s proposed reforms, including legislation to claw back improperly paid federal funds to presidents, bar corporate executives convicted of corruption or financial crimes from serving in the executive branch, and require recusal for officials on matters tied to recent employers, portraying these as a blueprint for what Democrats would pursue if returned to a congressional majority.[2][12]
The piece suggests that Trump’s ability to normalize scandal—through constant ethical controversies, aggressive attacks on critics and routine use of inflammatory rhetoric—has numbed much of the public to corruption, and it presents Schiff’s floor speech and media appearances as an effort to “snap people out” of that numbness by breaking down complex schemes into kitchen-table impacts.[4][6][15]
Finally, the article situates Schiff as a longstanding antagonist of Trump, recalling that Schiff led Trump’s first impeachment trial in the House and has since become a frequent target of presidential denunciations and federal inquiries, including a mortgage-fraud investigation that Schiff and allies characterize as political retaliation for his persistent criticism.[3][8][10]
Different views on the topic
In contrast, Trump and close allies publicly depict Schiff not as a corruption watchdog but as a corrupt politician and partisan foe, with Trump labeling Schiff “dishonest” and “corrupt,” calling for him to be “brought to justice,” and urging authorities to pursue criminal charges over alleged mortgage fraud and other supposed misconduct.[1][9][11][14]
Trump and sympathetic commentators frame the mortgage investigation involving Schiff as evidence that the senator engaged in a “sustained pattern” of misrepresenting his primary residence to secure more favorable loan terms, pointing to a criminal referral from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and internal findings that Schiff and his wife allegedly claimed different properties as their main home over many years.[3][5][11][14]
From this perspective, the Trump camp argues that probing Schiff’s mortgages and launching federal inquiries are justified responses to what they describe as years of Schiff promoting unfounded claims about Trump, including his role in the Russia investigations, and they cast Schiff’s anti-corruption campaign as hypocritical given the unresolved status of the mortgage case.[9][14]
At the same time, conservative outlets highlight that the investigation into Schiff remains open, even after reports that a U.S. attorney in Maryland questioned whether the evidence was strong enough to support an indictment, using that ongoing scrutiny to suggest that Schiff’s legal vulnerability undercuts moral authority to accuse Trump of corruption.[13][14]
Moreover, critics sympathetic to Trump portray Schiff’s creation of a legal defense fund as an admission that the senator expects serious legal challenges, and they argue that raising money for such a fund while attacking Trump’s financial dealings amounts to another example of what they see as partisan double standards in how Democratic and Republican politicians are judged.[7][14]
Finally, Trump’s allies often characterize high-profile speeches and legislative proposals targeting Trump’s finances as political theater aimed at energizing Democratic voters and the media rather than serious efforts to address economic concerns, insisting that Trump’s agenda is being unfairly depicted as self-serving while opponents like Schiff evade accountability for their own alleged ethical lapses.[1][9][14]
