Petty corruption was a recurring theme of the first Trump presidency. Donald Trump's vast business empire presented inherent, unfixable conflicts of interest: you can't put your assets in a blind trust when those assets are skyscrapers, hotels, and golf courses with your name written on them in huge gold letters. It was easy enough for foreign governments and potentates to seek favor with Trump by staying in his hotels and giving preferred treatment to his business interests abroad, and Trump cannot have been unaware of that. As I argued at the time, the square peg of commercial transactions with a preexisting ...

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