What we see in this astonishing tweet is an implicit endorsement by the president of the United States of omertà, the Mafia code of silence, which has been honored, especially over the past 30 years or so, more in theory than in practice.

Trump expanded upon his views this morning, in an interview on Fox & Friends, in which he seemed to refer, obliquely, though elegiacally, to the dismantling of the Mafia in New York City (an effort led for a time by his current attorney Rudy Giuliani).

“It’s called ‘flipping’ and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump said. “I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go.”

The Manafort and Cohen convictions serve as a reminder that only some people pay the consequences for systemic corruption.

In these statements, Trump displays contempt for the rule of law, and honors criminals who refuse to cooperate with law enforcement. He’s doing nothing less than elevating gangster ideology to the status of high principle. He’s also evincing a gauzy and archaic understanding of the nature of gangsterism. I heard, in his statements, echoes of many conversations I had while trying to understand the culture of organized crime.

A former Gambino Family soldier named Dominick Montiglio told me once, in explaining his decision to turn against the Mob, that “those guys who can stand up to the government, I respect them a lot. Nobody does this anymore. It’s too hard.” (Montiglio was Scorcese-level insightful in explaining the attractions of the organized-crime lifestyle: “When I was in the life, it was great. I mean, we got respect. I got in once at Studio 54 ahead of Burt Reynolds. That’s what we were attracted to, the glitz. It doesn’t exist anymore … The new generation ruined it.”)

On Wednesday night, I went spelunking through old stories and notebooks in search of Gravano statements concerning respect and honor, and the moral implications of turning coat. I was not surprised to find quotations on the subject that framed these issues in a Trumpian way. Here is one representative comment, made over dinner at a Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Phoenix in 1999: “I got a lot of respect for the guys who don’t break under the pressure, the FBI pressure, or whatever,” Gravano said. “This is the government we're talking about. They can do a lot to you in terms of pressure, but I didn’t do this for the deal, believe me. Okay? I did this because John was a double-crosser. He double-crossed me. So I double-double-crossed him. I'm the master double-crosser. He got his. He thought he was playing chess. No fucking way he was playing chess.”

We had spent much of this conversation talking about Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather, who had recently died. “There's no scruples anymore,” Gravano said. “No respect for rules and regulations. The Godfather has respect in it, but that doesn’t exist anymore … You think there’s respect? Some guys have balls—the real gangsters—they respect the rules we have, they’ll do the time. But most of these guys? No respect.”