President Trump doesn’t have the power, even if he wanted it, to rid Washington of the corruption, the revolving door, and the cash-for-access and quid-pro-quo dealing that infects K Street. But he does have the power to drain a bit of the swamp.
He could say “knock it off” to all the friends and associates who followed him to Washington in hope of making a fortune from their connections to him. He could set a policy of refusing access to anyone brought to his door by swamp creatures such as Michael Cohen and Corey Lewandowski.
Cohen, one of Trump’s lawyers, made millions of dollars, it seems, by offering clients access or insights into the administration. Drug giant Novartis agreed to pay him $100,000 a month. AT&T also shelled out for his services. But judging by AT&T’s and Novartis’ comments last week, Cohen did not deliver what he promised.
We’re cheered by the indications that there was no quid pro quo. But it’s still unseemly and corrupting that Cohen’s claims of a special connection to the president were sufficiently plausible that he could sell them for big bucks. Trump had the power to tell his lawyer, if he knew what was going on, that his behavior was a clear conflict of interest and that it must stop.
This is what draining the swamp for real would look like. When Trump spoke of the crooked lobbyists selling policy and power, maybe he was merely talking about the lobbyists who opposed him. Maybe he didn’t think those critiques could apply to good old New York lawyers like Cohen, who, after all, are on his side.
In the Trump era, however, plenty of new swamp creatures have hatched and started hunting through the ooze. Cohen is one. Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager who set up shop a few steps from the White House in early 2017, is another. Trump could refuse to let Lewandowski and other campaign and administration alumni sell access. He could proclaim loudly, “Paying the guys who cashed out of my administration won’t get you in my door.”
It would be naive to expect this. Perhaps it’s absurd to think Trump would not want his inner circle getting rich off of his election. Surely, some people in every political campaign think that’s the point of getting a guy elected.
And surely, it would be naive to implore Trump to throw Cohen to the curb in the light of Cohen’s apparently shady behavior. Trump probably can’t afford to have Cohen on his bad side.
Nevertheless, it’s fair to say what Trump should do. As soon as he was elected we said he should divest himself of his businesses and put the assets into a genuinely blind trust. Now, he should tell all his former aides to stop selling access. He should deny access to anyone who tries to buy a seat at the table by paying revolving-door gatekeepers. He should do this because it would be a radical change to how things are done in Washington.
Trump wasn’t elected to be an ordinary president, so he should not tolerate ordinary corruption.
