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Whenever I hear Donald Trump\u2019s supporters defend him from charges of corruption, I think of Edgar Allen Poe\u2019s \u201c<\/span>The Purloined Letter.<\/a>\u201d<\/span> In that short story, a French Minister is able to hide a very valuable document from the Parisian police by, well, not hiding it. As Poe\u2019s detective C. Auguste Dupin explains, \u201cthe more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n The thing about Trump is that his <\/span>corruption<\/a> is committed <\/span>almost entirely out in the open<\/a> \u2014 and to his supporters, doing something in public is the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card. <\/span><\/p>\n In early 2016 <\/span>Donald Trump famously said<\/a>, \u201cI could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” At the time Trump was referencing the die-hard loyalty of his supporters. Upon reflection, however, there is a second way to think about that statement. It is that Trump believes he can say or do anything and it will not affect his political standing. <\/span><\/p>\n Later in 2016, <\/span>Ezra Klein Vox-splained<\/a> that this was Trump\u2019s political superpower:<\/span><\/p>\n You cannot embarrass Donald Trump. You cannot back him down with questions that make other candidates buckle. And the crowd loves him for it. They love him <\/span>because<\/em> he does not back down. The fact that Trump doesn\u2019t back down is the core of Trumpism\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n Donald Trump proved that you cannot embarrass Donald Trump. He is a man who lives entirely without shame or self-doubt. It\u2019s like a superpower. And every time he refuses to back down, every time he shows what you can do and say if you have no shame, his supporters thrill to him a little more.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This observation is nearly a decade old but it is worth remembering, because it highlights an important asymmetry between Trump and his political opponents. During his presidential runs, Trump accused both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden of massive corruption. With Clinton it was her speaking fees and philanthropic foundation; with Biden it was his family, particularly his son Hunter. In both cases there was just enough there there for Clinton and Biden to feel some discomfort about it. Because Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are not sociopaths, they feel shame in these moments. <\/span>This makes their lies and half-truths all the more awkward <\/a>as a result. <\/span><\/p>\n Trump, on the other hand, is not a liar so much as a bullshit artist. He does not care whether he is telling the truth or not, which means that on occasion, he stumbles into some truth, even about himself. His lack of shame, however, enables him to plow full steam ahead past any perception of <\/span>corruption<\/a>. Indeed, his shamelessness sends a signal to his supporters that if he\u2019s not embarrassed by what he\u2019s done, why should they be? <\/span><\/p>\n This is precisely how Trump\u2019s supporters have defended him in recent weeks and months. In May CNN\u2019s Scott Jennings defended <\/span>Donald Trump\u2019s egregious pay-for-play pardon scheme<\/a> by <\/span>saying <\/a>that at least he\u2019s doing it out in the open: \u201cit\u2019s being done out in the open, it\u2019s being done in the light of day, we\u2019re not doing it at the 11th hour\u2026 Donald Trump is fully owning these decisions.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Speaker of the House Mike Johnson <\/span>similarly defended Trump\u2019s pardons<\/a> using the exact same line of argument: <\/span><\/p>\n House Speaker <\/span>Mike Johnson<\/a> appeared blas\u00e9 over concerns that <\/span>Donald Trump<\/a> is using his presidential power to help line his pockets, arguing that, unlike <\/span>Joe Biden<\/a>, the president does \u201ceverything out in the open.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While speaking with CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper on <\/span>State of the Union<\/em> Sunday, the <\/span>GOP congressman<\/a> rushed to the president\u2019s defense over alleged conflicts of interest stemming from a <\/span>recent private dinner<\/a> with top investors in his meme coin, $TRUMP\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe difference, of course, is that President Trump does everything out in the open. He\u2019s not trying to hide anything,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThere’s no shell companies or fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He\u2019s putting it out there, so everybody can evaluate for themselves.\u201d\u2026.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, again, I don\u2019t know anything about that dinner. I do know that President Trump is the most transparent president in the most transparent administration, probably in history. He has nothing to hide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has <\/span>also defended Trump<\/a> from corruption questions by asserting that Trump \u201chas been incredibly transparent with his own personal financial obligations.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n This argument that Trump\u2019s transparency and lack of shame means he cannot be corrupt also works on the mainstream media. To be fair, that\u2019s because it has long been a dictum inside the Beltway that \u201cthe coverup is always worse than the crime.\u201d <\/p>\n For example, here\u2019s <\/span>what Politico\u2019s Playbook had to say<\/a> about Trump\u2019s media availability compared to his predecessor: <\/span><\/p>\n By lunchtime today it will have been 48 hours since <\/span>Donald Trump <\/strong>stepped in front of a TV camera for a speech or Q&A \u2014 <\/span>the first time that\u2019s happened<\/strong><\/em> (outside of the weekends) since he returned to the White House on Jan. 20. Whatever your politics, that\u2019s a remarkable record of public availability, especially when compared to his famously sheltered predecessor. <\/span>And look how that turned out.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n By the numbers: A quick trawl through the archives suggests Trump 2.0 has done media on 111 of his 138 days back in office \u2014 an 80 percent hit rate that <\/span>includes weekends <\/em>and must put him on course to being just about the most-accessible president in modern history. And aside from the <\/span>lamentable attempt to ban AP,<\/a> he\u2019s basically taken questions from all-comers. It\u2019s impressive stuff. <\/span><\/p>\n In case anyone still needs this hammering home for them, the Joe Biden experience shows just how important it is that leaders are held up to regular scrutiny. Trump\u2019s answers may sometimes be rambling, erratic \u2014 or even downright unpleasant \u2014 but every American voter can see where he\u2019s at.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n There is a grain of truth to this point: transparency and accessibility are almost always better than opacity and unavailability. The problem comes when observers infer from the transparency that Trump has done nothing wrong. He has \u2014 he just doesn\u2019t have any shame about it. <\/p>\n Donald Trump is not attempting to conceal <\/span>his corruption<\/a>. That does not make <\/span>his corruption<\/a> any less disgusting and deformative of the American political experiment. <\/span><\/p>\n\n
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