The Most Lawless Administration In Nearly A Century

Donald Trump is leading the most lawless administration that we have seen in nearly a century, probably since Warren Harding, and arguably engaging in far more illegality than even the Nixon administration. And that illegality stretches across broad swaths of the Trump administration. Let us count the crimes:

• There is the widespread and continual violations of the Emoluments Clause.
• There is the nepotism of giving Jared and Ivanka government positions.
• There are the lies of Flynn and Kushner on their security clearances.
• There is Flynn's apparent violation of the Logan Act.
• There is Flynn's reported lying to the FBI.
• There is the lying to Congress by Sessions, Mnuchin, Price, and others.
• There is the widespread, overly broad, and retroactive ethics wavers to members of the administration.
• There is the attempt by multiple advisers such as Carl Icahn to engage in blatant self-dealing.
• There are Trump's multiple attempt to obstruct justice, including firing Comey and Yates.
• There are the multiple cases of abetting obstruction of justice by Priebus, Burr, Nunes, Sessions, and Rosenstein.
• There is Sessions' ignoring his recusal on multiple occasions.
• There is the directive to not comply with Congressional oversight requests from Democrats.
• And yesterday we had the situation where Rogers, Coats, and Rosenstein refused to answer questions from the Congressional oversight committee for no reason other than the answers might embarrass the President.

The last item is truly the most frightening, as Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, as it drives a tank through the idea of separation of powers that the country is built on. And it is an especially egregious violation for Admiral Mike Rogers, who, by the nature of his military position, owes a greater allegiance to the Constitution than to the President himself. Of course, the committee could have immediately declared them all in contempt of Congress, but, as I have written, both parties are in no hurry in this investigation.

These are not just small missteps by insignificant members of the Trump administration, but serious violations of law, including felonies and potential high crimes and misdemeanors. And these are just the ones we know about; there are probably others that I have left out or are to be uncovered. Nor have we even seen the tip of the iceberg in the underlying details of the Russian investigation. And we're not even counting the mountains of lies to the American people that people up and down the administration make on a daily basis.