How President Trump’s fake populism bails out the 1 percent.   The prospect of four years of Donald J. Trump’s nonstop rants about imaginary conspiracies against his daughter, wholesale slander against the judicial branch and attacks on the press as enemies of the people has caused some Americans to slip into a comforting form of…

Published Feb. 23, 2017 in the Washington Monthly. ( Link to article) Connecting the dots between Trump and the Russian mafia. For more than a year, the media have been abuzz with facts, rumors, and speculation regarding President Trump’s ties to the Russian government – his own personal ties, and those of advisers like Michael…

The incredible recklessness of Michael Flynn. It is usually in year three or year seven of a presidency that the scandals hit with full fury, but Donald J. Trump is shaking up all the staid conventions of Washington. The departure of his national security adviser after only 23 days on the job amid a growing…

Published Feb. 13, 2017 in the Washington Monthly. ( Link to article) The FBI must have known that Michael Flynn illegally discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. On February 10, the Washington Post ran an above-the-fold story stating that — according to multiple government sources — Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security adviser, took a…

Published Feb.1, 1017 in the Washington Monthly. ( Link to article) This trend could have major consequences for Trump’s foreign policy. A few weeks before the election, I phoned an acquaintance who was burrowed into a sinecure in the federal government despite his theoretical conservative detestation of the Beltway Leviathan and its evil works. This phenomenon…