The AP finds out more about the hapless qualities of Acting Attorney General Whitaker:
While in private business, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walked away from a taxpayer-subsidized apartment-rehabilitation project in Iowa after years of cost overruns, delays and other problems, public records show.
The city of Des Moines ultimately yanked an affordable housing loan that Whitaker’s company had been awarded, and another lender began foreclosure proceedings after Whitaker defaulted on a separate loan for nearly $700,000. Several contractors complained they were not paid, and a process server for one could not even find Whitaker or his company to serve him with a lawsuit.
Steve Benen contributes to the fun:
Vox published a piece yesterday summarizing Whitaker’s many controversies, and I was struck, not just by the seriousness of the allegations, but by the length of the piece itself. Ordinarily, before anyone could put together a lengthy list of controversies surrounding a Trump cabinet official, he or she would have to be in office for at least a couple of months.
Matt Whitaker is currently in his seventh day – and two of those days were a weekend.
What struck me is how this factual narrative is congruent with the generic story of a con-man, leaving wreckage in his wake as he climbs the ladder of ambition.
And then I recalled Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who appears to have conned many, many people into thinking he’s some uber-billionaire, yet appears to have acquired much of his wealth – whatever there may be – through less than ethical means.
And then there’s former White House advisor Steve Bannon, who conned many a person into thinking he was some right-wing oracle, forecasting the fall of the left and the dominance of the right wing extremists.
And, skipping over some other possible con-critters, there’s the Conman-in-Chief, President Trump, who has visibly and painfully conned quite a few people with his claims of business success, intelligence, experience, oh so many things.
Someday, someone’s going to make a game out of this Administration, and one of the areas should be Tawdry Themes Of The Trump Administration. The Big Con could be the question, with many, many answers.
