MAGA ally and conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson is urging President Donald Trump to “clean up” the corruption in government, including in his own administration.
In a video for The Daily Signal on Tuesday, Hanson said corruption weighed heavily on voters in last week’s midterms, and warned that even the perception of it is causing Republicans to “lose the moral high ground.”
Hanson, author of The Case for Trump, started with familiar Democratic targets Hunter Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Ilhan Omar, before turning on his own side.
“But we as conservatives can’t just say it’s Hunter or Pelosi or Ilhan Omar,” he said.
Corruption on the right is especially damaging, he argued, because MAGA and other right-wing movements are premised on attacking “the aristocratic classes and the corruption at the highest levels of government.”
Hanson pointed to corruption the administration has been targeting in various states, but argued that the same mindset must be applied to some White House officials and to Trump’s own family.
He said: “Some of us have been very worried about the Trump administration, that there are members associated with some of the Trump family that are very active in the Middle East, investing and helping people who are investors in the Middle East find receptive avenues in the United States that they might not otherwise find. … I don’t know if that’s illegal, but it seems highly unethical.”
Both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are involved in Middle East-related business ventures.
Hanson also named the president’s former attorney, Alina Habba Mildon, saying that although he had “a lot of regard for” her, she “is alleged to have obtained pardons” for people convicted of serious crimes, in some cases with “an alleged quid pro quo for over $50 million.” Habba Mildon reportedly took on a $50 million contract from the family of a Venezuelan man who later received a Trump pardon.
He brought up Steve Bannon, whom he said he personally likes, and Bannon’s admission that border wall donations were diverted to other uses.
And he pointed to Susie Wiles, whom Trump moved out as chief of staff last week, raising what he called “allegations, not proven,” that her daughter, a lobbyist, may have charged people to steer them to the right officials.
“That’s unethical. I don’t know if it’s illegal or not, but it’s unethical,” Hanson said.
He says Trump should be proactive and support a bill banning members of Congress from trading on the stock market, then establish similar rules within his own administration.
Conservatives, he said, must be “beyond suspicion of corruption.”
“It’s time to clean up the language, clean up behavior, stop the hate speech, and stop the graft and obvious corruption.”