Trump lacks integrity, is full of deception: Analyst
US President Donald Trump lacks integrity and has spent his whole life in deception, says a former American intelligence linguist, adding that there is a tremendous amount of corruption in the US political system.
“When it comes to Donald Trump, integrity is absolutely absent,” Scott Rickard told Press TV on Tuesday. “[Trump] has spent his whole life in deception and untruthfulness.”
“It’s very important for the United States citizens to understand the tremendous amount of corruption in the political environment in the United States,” Rickard said.
“Donald Trump has proven that he is following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton with her criminal activities,” he added.
“Americans are discovering the truth about their corrupt politicians and hopefully it will be enough to hold individuals accountable.”
Trump is abusing long-standing norms for ethical behavior and his conflicts of interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy,” according to the former head of the US government’s ethics watchdog agency.
Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), said Monday the White House faces an “ethics crisis” due to Trump’s business ties.
“His actions create the appearance of profiting from the presidency,” Shaub told the Guardian.
“It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy,” said Shaub, who left the OGE nearly six months before his five-year term was due to finish and is now a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization which advocates for ethics reform.
Shaub condemned Trump for using his hotels and other properties for government business in what is in effect a “free advertising” campaign.
He told USA TODAY last week that the White House deliberately appointed general counsel David Apol as acting director, bypassing the agency's second-ranking official, chief of staff Shelley Finlayson.
Historically, the general counsel at the agency has served in the acting role when the director has stepped down.
"He may fulfill a lifelong ambition of loosening up the ethics program," Shaub said of Apol, saying the two men had disagreed on a series of conflict-of-interest and other questions.
In an interview with PBS last Tuesday, Shaub was highly critical of the Trump Administration, accusing the White House of “setting a tone from the top that ethics doesn’t matter.”
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