We Always Knew Mike Pence Was Irrelevant, and Now We Know He's Corrupt, Too [View all]

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WORSER AND WORSER
We Always Knew Mike Pence Was Irrelevant, and Now We Know He’s Corrupt, Too
For two-plus years, the fawning vice president merely made a fool of himself. But after he stayed at Trump’s Ireland hotel, he’s much worse than that.
Margaret Carlson
Updated 09.05.19 10:00AM ET / Published 09.04.19 9:02PM ET


Until Vice President Mike Pence chose to stay at a Trump hotel 180 miles from where his meetings in Ireland were taking place, he fell somewhere in the middle of vice presidents: those who did so little to distinguish the office no one remembers them—Elbridge Gerry, Hannibal Hamlin, Dan Quayle—and those who did so much to disgrace the office—Calvin Coolidge, Spiro Agnew, Dick Cheney—that we can’t forget them.

Pence has moved from the first category to the second, not for dismissing claims that Trump paid off a porn star as baseless. It’s because rather than impose his Bible-thumping religion, with its commandment “Thou shalt not steal” on Trump, he has let Trump corrupt him. A glance at Trivago would reveal numerous hotels smack dab in the middle of where Pence’s meetings were taking place, and yet when Trump said, according to Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, “Why don’t you stay at my place?” he said yes.

When I invite someone to stay at my place, even if they chip the wedding china and drink all the good wine during their visit, I don’t bill them. But what “staying at my place” means when it’s Trump doing the inviting is that the taxpayer will pay dearly—likely six figures for the whole entourage (a suite with ocean view, high-count thread sheets, in-floor heat, and bespoke decor goes for $1,000 per night), and that’s without the cost of the commute by helicopter, or the bar tab.

The defense that Mike Pompeo’s State Department purportedly approved every last dollar of the trip is just confirmation that everyone’s on the take.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-always-knew-mike-pence-was-irrelevant-and-now-we-know-hes-corrupt-too?ref=scroll