The only check-and-balance that actually matters isn’t written in law
The destruction this week of the East Wing of the White House has been uniquely shocking, a physical manifestation of what Donald Trump is doing to our presidency and our country — the excavators and heavy equipment demolishing a 120-year-old literal piece of American history feels in many ways a microcosm of so many Trump controversies. It came out of left field, with no real warning or public debate, no permissions asked or given, to serve Donald Trump’s personal whims and vision of building an insane outsized gilded Kremlin-esque ballroom, was done contrary to the administration’s promises (“It won’t interfere with the current building.”), and involves deep deep corruption, as the construction is being funded outside normal appropriations channels, purportedly by some opaque set of “donations” from some unknown mix of companies and individuals who have been promised who-knows-what in exchange.
It feels personal in some ways, like someone is taking a wrecking ball to America itself. And it feels like another failure of the American system that someone can destroy an entire wing of the White House without notice.
Time and time again this year, I’ve been thinking about the failure of our system of checks and balances.
It turns out, in the end, that there’s only one check and balance that actually matters: Good character. Everything else in a constitutional system follows and relies on that simple foundation.
I’ve spent the last twenty years covering national security and have, over the years, interviewed or met almost every senior decision-maker in the intelligence community and federal law enforcement from the 21st century — FBI, CIA, NSA, and ICE directors, CBP commissioners, the directors of national intelligence, and most of this century’s attorneys general, DHS and defense secretaries and secretaries of state, not to mention dozens of sub-Cabinet officials — the deputies, under secretaries, assistant secretaries, and deputy assistant secretaries who make up the day-to-day decision-making at most levels of government. Many I’ve gotten to know quite well. Some are good friends.
Prior to January 2025, almost to a person I trusted that they took seriously the rule of law and their constitutional obligations under their oaths of office. I didn’t always agree with their decisions and sometimes debated with them the morality underlying their decisions, but never once doubted that there had been a robust discussion and debate about the legal and constitutional obligations behind the scenes before they made their decisions.
Those officials — across administrations and regardless of whether they were Republicans, Democrats, or nonpartisan apolitical civil servants — abided by norms of governing and participated willingly (albeit sometimes grudgingly) in oversight responsibilities by the judicial and legislative branches, understood checks and balances, cared deeply about the appropriations process and whether they were spending money in the manner congress had intended, and jumped through required ethics hoops. Many went out of their way to abide not just by the spirit of ethics laws but the actual letter thereof — I remember FBI agents refusing to accept copies of my book on the FBI, as de minimis and professionally useful a gift as any, because it violated their ethics guidelines. [Continue reading…]
The US president has said that he personally will pay for significant portions of its construction, and suggested that some still anonymous donors would be willing to spend more than $20m to complete the project.
The funding model has sparked concern among some legal experts, who say it may amount to paying for access to the administration.
“I view this enormous ballroom as an ethics nightmare,” Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer in the Bush White House between 2005 and 2007, told the BBC.
“It’s using access to the White House to raise money. I don’t like it,” he added. “These corporations all want something from the government.”
A dinner for potential donors held at the White House on 15 October included senior executives from prominent US companies including Blackstone, OpenAI, Microsoft, Coinbase, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
Also present was Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets NFL team, and Shari and Edward Glazer, who, together with their siblings, own both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United.
A pledge form seen by CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, suggested that donors could be eligible for “recognition” for their contributions. While plans are still being finalised, that recognition could potentially take the form of names etched into the structure.
The White House had originally said that the gigantic structure would have a seated capacity of 650 people. This week, Trump said that it will be able to hold 999.
Only one contributor has so far been revealed.
Court documents show that YouTube will pay $22m towards the project as part of a settlement with Trump regarding a lawsuit over the suspension of his account following the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
But it is unclear how many of the rest of those in attendance may have pledged to donate, or how much. An official list has yet to be published, though White House officials say they plan to reveal the one. [Continue reading…]