"President" Donald Trump is sort of the latest escalation of a process that really began with Reagan, where corruption in the executive branch is so endemic it's the natural state and anything else the exception.

This is often one of the best-kept secrets in the corporate press, which, for most of his administration, has devoted an absurdly inordinate amount of attention to "Russia, Russia, Russia" rubbish. But the stories do get reported, even if they are immediately left behind.