While Republicans respond to their 2018 midterm defeat by identifying the real problem—democracy itself—it's worth examining another dimension of the authoritarian impulse. The President of the United States, who recently lamented he will be robbed of the Nobel Peace Prize as he once was denied an Emmy by The Amazing Race, has overseen a festival of corruption since entering the White House. Many of our nation's least scrupulous citizens seem to have seen his improbable election as an invitation to smash the glass and grab everything they could. That includes, of course, The Kids.

Thanks to more great reporting from ProPublica, we learn that Don the Younger spun a tangled web involving hydroponic lettuce and a whimsically-named Texas money-manager.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, took a stake last year in a startup whose co-chairman is a major Trump campaign fundraiser who has sought financial support from the federal government for his other business interests...

The fundraiser, Texas money manager Gentry Beach, and Trump Jr. attended college together, are godfather to one of each other’s sons and have collaborated on investments — and on the Trump presidential campaign. Since Trump’s election, Beach has attempted to obtain federal assistance for projects in Asia, the Caribbean and South America, and he has met or corresponded with top officials in the National Security Council, Interior Department and Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

John Moore Getty Images

Beach and others at the startup, Eden Green Technology, have touted their connections to the first family to impress partners, suppliers and others, according to five current and former business associates.

So Junior has $650,000-worth of stock in his buddy's company—ProPublica could not determine whether he'd actually paid for it—which sought money and assistance from the Executive Branch of the federal government, which Junior's pops happens to run. Junior has made no mention of the arrangement publicly, and may have tried to conceal his involvement by investing through an entity called MSMDF Agriculture LLC. Beach is the godfather of one of his kids, was a groomsman at his wedding, and was also an executive at Enron. He then went on to work for a hedge fund that he's still fighting in court a decade later. What a resumé.

And then there's this:

Trump Jr., now 40, and Beach, now 43, met at the University of Pennsylvania two decades ago. Both are the sons of wealthy businessmen, one in real estate, one in oil and gas. Beach’s father has since been laid low: Last month he was sentenced to four months in federal detention, plus two years of supervised release, for bankruptcy fraud.

There seems to be something of a theme here. Fathers and sons, and all that.

The Trump family digging in. Paul Morigi Getty Images

But if you're wondering why we should care, consider that it may be just the latest example of how the Trump family has mixed their private business interests with public "service," a habit that continually presents conflicts-of-interest and prompts questions about whether American policy is being made to benefit Americans or the Trumps.

The most infamous recent example is "The Moscow Project," which former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pled guilty to lying about under oath last week. The Trump Organization pursued a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow through June 2016, not January as Cohen initially lied, and Donald Trump received regular updates on those efforts as he pursued the Republican nomination. This, of course, raises the question of whether Trump's relentless public support for Russia and President Vladimir Putin—who was reportedly set to receive the $50 million penthouse in the new tower, his kickback for supporting the deal—was tied to anything other than putting more money in his own pocket. The Kids were reportedly involved in this one, too. Ivanka Trump recommended an architect.

Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

Ivanka herself has earned some headlines recently for committing the same sins as Hillary Clinton when it comes to email protocol—the kind of rank hypocrisy which no longer resonates at all in our politics. But she also harbors a viper's nest of conflicts-of-interest in her dual role as senior adviser to the president and private businesswoman. Ivanka made $3.9 million off the family's D.C. hotel in 2017, the same hotel that has become the shining beacon of the New Swamp. Foreign dignitaries stay there—and spend their money there—to curry favor with the regime, which is controlled by the hotel's proprietors. In return, these foreign entities hope that American policy is crafted with their interests in mind.

One of the groups spending an awful lot of money at Trump properties is the Saudis. Their relationship goes way back: "In Trump's hard times, a Saudi prince bought a superyacht and hotel from him," according to The Chicago Tribune, and the Saudi government bought $4.5 million apartment from Trump in 2001—but has taken on a new sheen after his election. That same Tribune article tracked how Trump's hotels in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. all saw a significant uptick in Saudi business since he entered the White House. That's just the surface of his dealings with the House of Saud, an arrangement he used to trumpet: "I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."

Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the Oval Office. MANDEL NGAN Getty Images

And then, as luck would have it, the Saudis murdered a U.S.-resident journalist in their Istanbul embassy in October and the Trump administration worked overtime to absolve their senior leadership of responsibility for the crime. The CIA determined that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the assassination, but Trump declared in a public statement last week that Who Could Know for Sure?, and also there's too much money to be made to give up our relationship with the Saudis over one atrocity killing of a Washington Post writer. (The United States Senate, including many of its Republicans, seem to disagree. Meanwhile, Trump has consistently overstated the benefits of the Saudi arms deal, often to a comic degree.) In the statement, Trump cast this as concern for the United States' financial interests. But his swirling conflicts of interest force us to ask whether he's really thinking about the money headed for his own pockets.

And this is why it matters that Don the Younger is trying to make a buck on hydroponic lettuce. (The company, by the way, has a familiar grease to it: the largest shareholder sued alleging gross mismanagement, suggesting executives—including Gentry Beach—paid themselves absurd salaries while the company sunk into the ground.) This kind of rampant corruption is a critical dimension of authoritarian regimes. In order to keep the scheme afloat, enough of the peripheral players need to get paid off in some way. This is how it works in Putin's Russia: he gets a piece, but so do the oligarchs and the high-level bureaucrats and the mob, all of whom are interconnected. They do sham deals and syphon the money out of companies, often state-owned entities. It's a kleptocracy—a smash-and-grab.

Trump meets with Vladimir Putin. SAUL LOEB Getty Images

What seems to be developing in the United States isn't that far afield. The president's Cabinet is full of savory characters like Wilbur Ross, who stands accused of stealing $120 million from his business partners over the years. Or there's the various private-jet aficionados like Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of Interior—a department lobbied by Junior's lettuce outfit—who also accused a sitting congressman of being an alcoholic last week and using $50,000 in taxpayer funds to cover it up.

Zinke tried to spend $139,000 in taxpayer cash on doors for his office, and the geniuses at his department mistakenly released emails showing that they tailor their assessments of public lands to get them ready to be sold off to big business interests. That's not far off from Scott Pruitt, another of the Cabinet's Blue Angels, who essentially operated as an arm of the industries he was tasked with regulating while getting wined and dined by industry executives and lobbyists. One of those lobbyists gave him a sweetheart deal, through a spouse, on a prime piece of Washington real estate.

Even our beautiful vets aren't safe from the consequences here. ProPublica previously broke the story of how three members of Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club were given shadow control of the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite none of them having served and only one having any kind of medical background. Tuesday, the outlet expanded on that, reporting that those three reviewed a confidential draft of a $10 billion government contract. One of them, Palm Beach physician Bruce Moskowitz, negotiated to get the VA and Apple to use his app.

It's the Great American Heist, folks. All that's left to steal is the republic. Out in Wisconsin and Michigan and North Carolina, Republicans are drawing up the plans.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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