Trumpian Corruption Is Worse Than Ukrainian Corruption

5 comments

1. Anne Applebaum: “Ukraine is fighting for its survival. Drones and missiles hit Ukrainian cities most nights. Many Ukrainians nevertheless want, even now, to have a government that’s accountable to the public. Meanwhile, American and Russian kleptocrats are circling the country, looking for ways to do deals that benefit themselves…

   Applebaum spoke with Oleksandr Abakumov, a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine who was part of conducting the “Operation Midas” investigation. In it, he “and his colleagues have accused several people in the government of taking money from contracts involving the state nuclear-power company—a particularly sensitive charge at a moment when many Ukrainians live without electricity, thanks to Russian bombing campaigns.

   “Foreign coverage of ‘Operation Midas’ often relies on the passive voice, as if the scandal has a will of its own (“Scandal Consumes Top Aide”). But people such as Abakumov, who is a part of the Ukrainian state, worked to make the scandal public. They have interrogated cabinet ministers, published surveillance recordings, searched apartments. The Ukrainian Parliament has dismissed two ministers. Tymur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky, has fled the country. Late last month, the president’s closest adviser, Andriy Yermak, resigned following a search of his apartment. All of this means that the political system is healthy, operating according to the law…

   “Abakumov told me that he believes corruption, not transparency, weakens Ukraine. If Ukraine tolerates corruption, he said, ‘this is the way we lose, during the war, during negotiations, during rebuilding Ukraine.’ Daria Kaleniuk, one of Ukraine’s most prominent anti-corruption activists, told me that with this investigation, ‘we have the chance to save the country and make it stronger.’…

   “The Americans taking part in the recent Moscow negotiations are not brutal dictators, but neither are they civil servants acting purely in the interests of transparency, accountability, and patriotism. Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and the owner of an investment company that received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, are now conducting the main negotiations. Their Russian counterpart is Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, which has strong ties with its Saudi counterpart. He is believed to have met Kushner while doing business in the Gulf…

   “Witkoff and Kushner are not taking kickbacks on government contracts, as some Ukrainian officials are now accused of doing. The corruption they represent is more profound: They are using the tools of the American state in a manner that happens to benefit their friends and business partners, even while they do terrible damage to American allies, American alliances, and America’s reputation. This is a conflict of interest on a grand scale, with no real precedent in modern American foreign policy.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/pFJzCyCG](https://theatln.tc/pFJzCyCG)

2. Anne Applebaum: “Ukraine is fighting for its survival. Drones and missiles hit Ukrainian cities most nights. Many Ukrainians nevertheless want, even now, to have a government that’s accountable to the public. Meanwhile, American and Russian kleptocrats are circling the country, looking for ways to do deals that benefit themselves…

   Applebaum spoke with Oleksandr Abakumov, a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine who was part of conducting the “Operation Midas” investigation. In it, he “and his colleagues have accused several people in the government of taking money from contracts involving the state nuclear-power company—a particularly sensitive charge at a moment when many Ukrainians live without electricity, thanks to Russian bombing campaigns.

   “Foreign coverage of ‘Operation Midas’ often relies on the passive voice, as if the scandal has a will of its own (“Scandal Consumes Top Aide”). But people such as Abakumov, who is a part of the Ukrainian state, worked to make the scandal public. They have interrogated cabinet ministers, published surveillance recordings, searched apartments. The Ukrainian Parliament has dismissed two ministers. Tymur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky, has fled the country. Late last month, the president’s closest adviser, Andriy Yermak, resigned following a search of his apartment. All of this means that the political system is healthy, operating according to the law…

   “Abakumov told me that he believes corruption, not transparency, weakens Ukraine. If Ukraine tolerates corruption, he said, ‘this is the way we lose, during the war, during negotiations, during rebuilding Ukraine.’ Daria Kaleniuk, one of Ukraine’s most prominent anti-corruption activists, told me that with this investigation, ‘we have the chance to save the country and make it stronger.’…

   “The Americans taking part in the recent Moscow negotiations are not brutal dictators, but neither are they civil servants acting purely in the interests of transparency, accountability, and patriotism. Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and the owner of an investment company that received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, are now conducting the main negotiations. Their Russian counterpart is Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, which has strong ties with its Saudi counterpart. He is believed to have met Kushner while doing business in the Gulf…

   “Witkoff and Kushner are not taking kickbacks on government contracts, as some Ukrainian officials are now accused of doing. The corruption they represent is more profound: They are using the tools of the American state in a manner that happens to benefit their friends and business partners, even while they do terrible damage to American allies, American alliances, and America’s reputation. This is a conflict of interest on a grand scale, with no real precedent in modern American foreign policy.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/pFJzCyCG](https://theatln.tc/pFJzCyCG)

3. Absolutely. And Ukraine actually have independent agencies that can check the President! We _used_ to have special counsel, etc.

   It just goes to show you, we are truly moving into an era of unitary executive. The post-Watergate order of Congressional oversight on quasi-independent executive branch bodies is over. At best the in-party’s Congressional delegation is a co-governance partner, like a parliamentary ruling coalition.

   Part of the problem with “Center-Left” Dems, is they imagine we’re in a temporary suspension of the post-Watergate order. In reality they need to adjust to the new rules.

4. So many people built their careers carefully studying this “corruption” and all the dangers and troubles caused by it. They looked into causes, symptoms, tried to measure it (the infamous “corruption perception index”), tried to understand how to build institutions that would be robust enough to prevent and fight corruption.

   We were told that there are nations free of it and they deserve to be a part of bright future, and “dirty” nations that don’t – they must first “fight their corruption” and only after that – they will get a right of passage and not earlier.

   “Ukraine is too corrupt to join NATO”, “Ukraine is not ready”, “look at their corruption perception index”, bla-bla-bla-bla. None of these people had the guts to say the truth – that the problem was not the “corruption in Ukraine”, but their fear of Russia and their perception of Ukraine as an inferior unworthy country that did not deserve the right to join their blessed corruption-free institutions and equally did not deserve to have their own independent nuclear deterrent (cause “oh my God, they are so corrupt, what if they sell it to terrorists!”, and when you ask them “what if Russia sells them to terrorists?” they would reply “well Russia is a different story of course”).

   Now we are seeing how this blessed country, this wonderful leader of the Free World who used to decide who is corrupt and who is not, who is ready and who is not, our dear United States of America, is led by a felon who openly takes bribes from whoever is willing to pay. This is his second term, so it’s not a mistake, not an unfortunate misstep – this is what American people want to see in the White House.

   Where are all these institutions that supposed to protect the system? What does “corruption perception index” says about the US? Has it detected this change? Market manipulation, bribes from Qatar, “presents” from Big Tech, anything?

   This very same individual today is trying to weaponize this “corruption” thing against Ukraine – this is not the first time, but it’s the first time when it is done by someone who is himself openly and shamelessly corrupt, so the absurdity of this becomes painfully obvious even to the most naive people.

   So the main question now is when will all these people finally admit that this narrative about “corruption” is one big lie, that does not explain anything. Corruption is a problem – yes, but this is not the main driving force of the history, it’s not something that can answer every question possible, stop making it a fetish.

   What Trump does has nothing to do with the corruption, this is how he sees the world, he doesn’t care about the Europe, about Ukraine, and he is like that not because he is corrupt, it’s just the way he sees the world. Nothing would change in the big picture if he was an honest and corruption-free politician with views like this. Corruption is not a factor here.

   Same applies to Putin – whether he is corrupt or not is irrelevant, he is a fascist with a goal to expand. Stalin was not corrupt, did it matter? No, because corruption – is not the worst thing in the world, there are things much-much worse than that.

   Stop explaining everything with corruption, it’s not a major factor in all this, it has some tactical relevance here and there, but this is not something that shapes the history, because it is present everywhere in one form or another.

5. US corruption…

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