Of course Donald Trump is corrupt. Everyone with any sense knew he would be, although the scale of his personal profiteering, the strong likelihood that his family’s financial interests have distorted U.S. foreign and national security policy, have startled even the cynics. And, of course, the example set by the grifter in chief has infected his whole administration.

But what’s really striking to me is not so much the extent of corruption among Trump officials as its pettiness. And that pettiness itself tells you a lot about the kind of people now running America.

Corrupt cabinet members used to look like Albert Fall, Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior, who was at the center of the Teapot Dome scandal. Fall used his office to secure sweetheart leasing deals for two oil companies, and in return received more than $400,000 in bribes — well over $5 million in today’s prices.

That’s the kind of corruption you can understand and sort of respect.

Corrupt Trump officials, by contrast, look like Tom Price, who managed to lose his job as secretary of health and human services by taking too many private planes at public expense; Ryan Zinke, who holds Fall’s old job at Interior and has a problem similar to Price’s but with helicopters and a general habit of using public funds to pay for private travel; Ben Carson of Housing and Urban Development, with his $31,000 dining set; and Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, who likes taking military jets, sometimes on what appear to be private vacations.