timelets

To win the elections, the president's personal lawyer (Cohen) was paying hush money to porn stars, so that they kept quiet about the then candidate's affairs. After the elections, the lawyer was selling information on his boss to gullible foreign corporate clients. And by the way, the president's election campaign chair (Manafort) was selling his information and influence to another group of moneyed foreign crooks.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the Iran deal got canned because some oil executives found a way to whisper in the president's ear through one of his fraudster confidants.

On the subject of corruption by design: A typical Law and Economics course covers the structure of laws that are susceptible to corrupt influences. When we see government rules that allow for "negotiable" outcomes, multiple exceptions, arbitrary decision-making and selective enforcement, we should expect fraud. Like bacteria in nutritional agar, crooks grow around bad laws. So far, the trade rules and tariffs set up by this administration carry the hallmarks of such bad laws. They invite corruption and fraud.