MICHELE EVE SANDBERG via Getty Images Money spent at Trump hotels and golf courses flows directly to Donald Trump personally, as he is the sole beneficiary of a trust that now owns his family business.

WASHINGTON — If White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had steered a federal contract to a business he owns, he could easily be in jail right now awaiting arraignment. “He would have been guilty of a felony, and it would have been a slam-dunk case for the prosecutor,” said Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics. Mulvaney, of course, did not steer a contract to his own business. Rather, he described in a Thursday news conference how his boss, President Donald Trump, had steered a multi-million dollar contract to host a major international conference to his own troubled golf course near the Miami airport — an action for which, because of Trump’s position, he might not face any legal consequence. A federal law prohibits any executive branch “officer or employee” from seeking any “ruling or other determination, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest, or other particular matter” in which he holds a “financial interest.” If that action is done willfully, it is punishable by up to five years in prison. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham suggested it was absurd to believe that the law could apply to Trump. “I’m confused, are you comparing a White House staffer with the president of the United States?” she said Friday. “The selection of Doral for next year’s G-7 is legal.” She also claimed — falsely — that Trump was no longer involved with his family business that operates his hotels, commercial buildings and golf resorts. “The president has no involvement in the Trump Organization anymore,” she said.

If anyone else were to be doing this, they would likely be investigated and end up behind bars. It’s so brazen, so black and white. Former federal prosecutor Danya Perry

In fact, Trump’s own financial disclosure statements show that he retains ownership of Trump National Doral, as well as the Trump Organization that operates it, through a trust he created after winning the 2016 election for which he is the sole trustee. Craig Holman, an ethics law expert with the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, said Trump did not, as he and his aides claim, separate himself from the Trump Organization. “All he’s done is turn over the management of the business to his own family, his sons,” he said. Indeed, Mulvaney revealed for the first time Thursday that it was Trump himself — not the city of Doral, Florida; not the golf course; not the Trump Organization — who first put his resort on the list of sites to be considered. “We were back in the dining room and I was going over it with a couple of our advance team. We had the list, and he goes, ‘What about Doral?’ And it was like, ‘That’s not the craziest idea. It makes perfect sense,’” Mulvaney said. Former federal prosecutor Danya Perry is stunned that Trump is so open about giving himself a massive government contract. “If anyone else were to be doing this, they would likely be investigated and end up behind bars,” said Perry, who spent 11 years in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York City. “It’s so brazen, so black and white.” William Weld, who once ran the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division under President Ronald Reagan and is now running against Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination, said that if Trump coerced his employees to enrich himself, that could involve even more serious laws. “That is extortion. That is a 20-year felony,” he said. Despite this, Trump is not likely to be charged for giving himself the contract. “Obviously, the Justice Department is not going to be prosecuting Trump for all sorts of reasons,” said former Chicago federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, although he said the word “officer” of the executive branch could well be construed by judges to include Trump himself. “Prosecutors would be very reluctant to wade into a politically charged question.”

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Employees of then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump stand behind him at a campaign event at his Trump National Doral golf club in Miami on Oct. 25, 2016.