Leaked conversation just the latest example of Trump’s corruption

For months, election observers have debated what role Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was hoping to play in the 2024 election. That question now appears to be settled after a conversation between RFK Jr. and Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump was inadvertently recorded and then released on X by Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III.

The recording and accompanying tweet, which has since been deleted from X, clearly indicates that RFK Jr. is another opportunistic Trump toady who has been working to siphon votes away from President Joe Biden and help Trump secure a second term in office. In the exchange, it appears RFK Jr. expected to be named Trump’s vice president.

While Trump did not name RFK Jr. as his VP, the recording suggests that Trump is an active participant in the plot and intends to appoint RFK Jr. to another significant role within the administration, possibly as the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Appointing a proud vaccine conspiracy theorist and medical science denier to lead HHS is disturbing enough in its own right. After all, HHS has authority over the Food and Drug Administration and thus over the approval and warning labels attached to vaccines and other pharmaceuticals.

However, such an agreement raises even more serious concerns about the integrity of an already dubious Trump administration and makes Kennedy’s campaign a transparent scheme to rig the election for Trump.

While it was already well documented that appointments in the Trump administration would be available exclusively to those who swear fealty to the aspiring emperor, the agreement discussed in the recordings suggests a second Trump administration would be fully transactional in its appointments.

In other words, Trump’s Cabinet of top advisers and executive agency leaders’ primary qualification is to provide personal benefit to Trump rather than efficiently run the government on behalf of the people.

Put in this light, Trump’s decision to select JD Vance to be his vice president instead of the clearly expectant RFK Jr. makes sense. While Vance has almost no government experience and has served in the Senate for less than two years, his mentor is a multibillionaire (billionaire with a “b”) venture capitalist and arch conservative Republican donor Peter Thiel.

Thiel personally donated more than a $1 million to the Trump campaign in 2016. According to The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman, Thiel was rewarded for his support with an office at Trump Tower and two high-level appointments in the Trump administration, including a senior staff position on the National Security Council.

In 2022, Thiel donated another $20 million to Republican candidates, including $15 million to a PAC supporting Vance’s Senate run. It remains the largest donation to a single candidate in congressional campaign history.

In November 2023, Thiel told Gellman he would no longer donate to political candidates. Then, last month, Thiel and a group of conservative tech billionaires co-founded America PAC, which has already raised over $8.7 million. Among the early supporters are Joe Lonsdale — who co-founded Palantir Technologies with Thiel and is a close friend and confidant of Elon Musk. According to a report by Bloomberg, Musk and numerous Musk associates have also donated to the PAC.

It’s not hard to imagine a handshake agreement in which Thiel promises donations in exchange for seeing his prodigal mentee become the vice president. In fact, according to The New York Times, Thiel brought Vance to his very first meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021.

Nor is it difficult to imagine an agreement in which Musk promised a multimillion-dollar donation to Trump’s campaign — like the one he promised earlier this week — in exchange for ensuring that Musk’s companies are awarded lucrative NASA, Department of Transportation and Department of Energy contracts. No doubt Musk also expects Trump to name hand-picked Musk candidates to plum positions just as Thiel got in 2016.

The entire situation already carried the putrid smell of cronyism and corruption. And now, there is a recording of a phone call in which Trump all but says he is willing to trade political and financial favors for high-level government appointments, regardless of any other meaningful qualifications.

Trump has long promised to drain the swamp but what he’s really doing is elevating corruption to brand new levels.

Not since the Teapot Dome scandal of 1922 has such a blatant pay-for-play scheme been implicated from a serious contender for the White House. In the Teapot Dome scandal, the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Albert Fall, accepted personal bribes, no-interest loans and other “gifts” in exchange for no-bid contracts awarded to oil companies operating on federal land in Wyoming. After a U.S. Senate investigation, Fall was convicted by a jury and became the first former Cabinet member to go to prison. Pending the outcome of Trump’s legal proceedings, Trump may soon hold a similar honor as the first former U.S. president to go to prison.

But regardless of whether Trump’s actions cross the line of criminal conduct or whether Trump’s friends on the U.S. Supreme Court enable him to be held legally accountable, it is clear that the American people should hold him politically accountable.

And after this call, RFK Jr. has essentially confessed to being up for sale and lying to the people of America. He’s not fit to carry his father’s name. His supporters should abandon him.

There is no mystery as to who Trump is, the extent of his character or the brazenness of his deceit and corruption. It’s up to us to deny Trump the Oval Office, or accept that the next president of the United States is selling the government of the people, by the people and for the people to the highest bidder.