Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has issued their report on the myriad ethics lapses of Trump's first year in office.
I have not had time to read the entire PDF of the report, but a quick perusal indicates that it will be the go to guide on the complete range of scandals of this, the most ethically challenged of American Presidencies.
From the summary:
“In the lead-up to President Trump’s inauguration, we at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and concerned people across the United States urged the president to take key steps to avoid corruption and conflicts of interest and demonstrate a commitment to ethical government. The most notable of these demands was that he follow the example of all presidents of both parties for decades and sell his businesses. By the time he placed his hand on the Bible at noon on January 20, 2017, it was evident that he had not done so, and an ethics crisis was brewing. That’s why we filed our first conflicts complaint concerning the president at 12:01 p.m. that day, and a groundbreaking conflicts lawsuit on constitutional grounds shortly thereafter. We hoped President Trump would correct his course, and we worried for the impact on our democracy if he did not.
A year later, we at CREW have initiated 180 other legal matters against the president and his administration. It has long since become clear that our initial concerns – and those of so many Americans – were well founded. Indeed, in retrospect they were understated. The Trump administration is confronted by an extraordinary scale and scope of legal and ethics scandals. It is unrivaled in the modern era, and perhaps in the history of the nation, for a first-year administration. The conduct of this administration, from the president on down, threatens our centuries-old tradition of a government that functions to serve the interests of the American people, rather than to serve the interests of those in power. A year in, it is clear that a failure to address this crisis, or a normalization of the corrupt conduct of this administration, risks lasting harm to the country.
The problems begin at the top. Indeed, the original sin of the Trump administration was the president’s decision to retain ownership of his businesses. While he has apparently transferred day-to-day management of his businesses to his sons, he continues to own his vast global empire of hotels, golf courses, office buildings, and other businesses; he knows what the companies are, he monitors their activities, he profits when the companies do, and the trust he formed allows him to access those profits at any time. That creates a massive web of conflicts of interest. For virtually every decision President Trump makes, from taxes to environmental regulations to foreign policy, the American people cannot be sure whether he made his decision in the public interest or to benefit his bottom line.”
Happy reading!