Despite acting sheriff of Congress in the past, Congressman Jason Chaffetz said this week that he sees no real reason to assume Trump is taking advantage of his office for monetary gain because he’s already so wealthy.
Jason Chaffetz, the man who haunted Hillary Clinton’s nightmares for months by aggressively pursuing her email scandal, is now showing his partisan colors in the Trump administration, handling his party’s president with kid gloves.
On Thursday, Chaffetz was asked to comment on the litany of emolument violations and other clear examples of the Trump family raking in piles of cash from their father’s presidency. But rather than taking these claims seriously and promising to fully investigate them, Chaffetz brushed them off because he believed Trump was too rich to really care about making more money.
The Atlantic’s staff writer McKay Coppins asked Chaffetz if he was worried about the ongoing complications between the presidency and his various businesses, to which he shrugged.
“He’s already rich. He’s very rich. I don’t think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more. I just don’t see it like that.”
Because you get to be a billionaire by not really caring that much about more money.
Chaffetz was asked about specific instances of clear corruption like Kellyanne Conway’s public endorsement of Ivanka’s clothing line, or the now-canceled business deal between a Chinese investment firm and the Kushner family. Even in these examples, Chaffetz said that he didn’t think the American people were affected or concerned – but they were about Hillary’s emails, right Chaffetz?
We know partisanship exists, and we know that corruption happens, but to see a man like Chaffetz roll over so effortlessly against a corrupt individual in his own party is concerning. How can we trust the various investigations and inquiries into Trump’s administration if we can’t even trust Chaffetz to look at things with eyes open?
