Image: Bin im Garten, Creative Commons

This article was written by Michael Krieger and originally published at Liberty Blitzkrieg.com.

Editor’s Comment: Bought and sold. Rigged. Manipulated. Fixed for a tiny cabal of insiders. Conflict of interest.

They are typical terms that one might have thought applied to the Bush Administration, or the Clinton and Obama presidencies. But already, these terms can be safely applied to Trump’s administration, and it hasn’t even officially begun yet.

It took mere minutes after the election results indicated Trump’s win for The Donald, in his victory speech, to back off of any promises, hints or even suggestions of prosecuting Hillary Clinton (he doesn’t want to hurt them, they are good people)– after campaigning heavily on the notion. And now, after weeks of picking his cabinet appointments, staff and advisors, that Newt Gingrich, a top Trump advisor, admitted that President-elect Trump has officially backed off his other campaign slogan – “Drain the Swamp.”

After choosing Gary Cohn (National Economic Council) and Steven Mnuchin (Treasury Secretary), both from the Goldman Sachs pool, as well as other Wall Street bankers, for top positions in his cabinet – Trump is reportedly officially ditching the corny slogan “drain the swamp.” It makes sense, as it is wholly without substance, and quite disingenuous… as Krieger has written before: “There will be swamp!”

Newt Gingrich Admits – Donald Trump No Longer Wants to ‘Drain the Swamp’

by Michael Krieger

Not that he ever wanted to, but here’s Newt Gingrich admitting what many of us already knew regarding Donald Trump’s fake populism.

Politico reports:

President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington of corruption, but now that he’s preparing to move into the White House, Newt Gingrich said the Manhattan real estate mogul is looking to distance himself from that message.

“I’m told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore,” the former House Speaker and close Trump adviser said of the “drain the swamp” message in an NPR interview published Wednesday morning. 

Trump’s Cabinet and other high-level appointments seem to have deviated somewhat from his “drain the swamp” message. After attacking Democrat Hillary Clinton regularly throughout the campaign for being too close to Wall Street banks, Trump has put three former Goldman Sachs executives in prominent White House positions, including Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary, Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist and Gary Cohn as the director of the National Economic Council.

As I highlighted in the recent post, The Election Never Ended:

As Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager and top adviser to Trump, as well as a former Goldman Sachs banker himself, put it Thursday: “I think the cabal against the bankers is over.” 

Indeed, as we all know, U.S. government economic policy has been essentially handed over to Goldman Sachs during this transition period. Must be a reward for its most recent settlement for rigging yet another market.

Reuters reports:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc will pay a $120 million penalty to resolve civil charges that it attempted to manipulate a global benchmark for interest rate products known on Wall Street as “ISDAFIX,” U.S. derivatives regulators said Wednesday.

The case against Goldman Sachs, brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was the latest in a series of broad investigations into manipulation by big banks of a variety of global benchmark rates.

To date, the CFTC has imposed penalties of over $5.2 billion stemming from these probes, which include Libor and Euribor, foreign exchange benchmarks, and the U.S. Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix, or USD ISDAFIX.

A number of banks have also resolved parallel criminal charges related to the manipulation of various global benchmarks.

Goldman Sachs, which was also accused by the CFTC of making false reports on the benchmark rate, will settle the case without admitting or denying the charges.

Penalties don’t change the behavior of white collar criminals. Jail sentences would, but we don’t see any of that when it comes to bank execs.

On the other hand…

John Gotti went to prison after fixing construction costs in New York. Lloyd Blankfein went to cocktail parties after fixing swaps. pic.twitter.com/inlC4Fm66w

— Donald van Deventer (@dvandeventer) December 21, 2016

Thanks for playin’ America.

For related articles, see:

Interview with The Corbett Report – Trump Fills the Swamp With Steven Mnuchin

Draining the Swamp? Wall Street is Already Loving Donald Trump

Trump Fills the Swamp with Elaine Chao (Mitch McConnell’s Wife) for Transportation Secretary

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

This article was written by Michael Krieger and originally published at Liberty Blitzkrieg.com. Please visit his site and support his work.