“Who Benefits” has a whole new meaning with the Trump Administration, and it’s not a good one. With all of the very important and frustratingly distracting things going on over the past two weeks, this is still the central issue that we should be watching. Follow the money.

One of the most visible and problematic issues of the Trump presidency is that he and his cronies are redefining “plutocracy.” In the past, it has typically meant “rule for the rich,” with legislators of both US parties passing laws and regulations over time that benefit the rich much more than everyone else. These are the policies that set up our current insane levels of inequality, and a society that very clearly does not benefit everyone as much as it could/should.

But now we have Trumpian Plutocracy, or “rule by the rich.” There are an inordinate number of the uber-wealthy in this administration, from the President, to Secretary of State, potential Education Secretary, Commerce, Treasury, Small Business Adminstration, etc. etc. etc. At least 17 top picks who are UBER wealthy. Not just rich, but over $500m rich. Recently two of those picks, Steve Mnuchin (Treasury) and Tom Price (HHS), appear to have perjured themselves about their wealth before the Senate Committee during their hearings, when they gave demonstrable falsehoods about their past activity. Price traded medical stocks while working on legislation that dealt with those companies, and Mnuchin was a bank executive who engaged in robo-signing mortgages, one of the practices that led directly to the crisis. Both said they didn’t do these things, in the face of concrete evidence to the contrary that took about a day to find. And then the GOP side of the committee used Senate rules to pass them on to the full Senate without challenging their statements.

In and of itself this might not be a problem (ok, the perjury is!), but none of these nominees are being fully required to disclose and/or divest all of their wealth. The GOP Senate is being largely complicit with the administration in letting people slide on those pesky “ethics” checks in which they need to disclose EVERYTHING that could benefit them when they are in the job. The reason: many of these people have highly complex investment portfolios, and investigating them would take a lot of time! Well in that situation, logic dictates that a REALLY thorough investigation is probably called for! Anyone who tells you to not look behind the curtain because it is too complicated is lying to you, and has something to hide.

And there was more news this week. Trump is doing everything he can to push back against Dodd/Frank rules, and other regulations put in place by the Obama administration in the aftermath of the housing crisis. These were primarily rules to curb the horrific excesses of the financial industry that cost ordinary Americans enormous amounts of money, nearly tanked our entire economy (and did for several years), and led to extreme riches for a small number of financial executives, with no real penalties in sight. And now they are going to be pulled back, because “regulation is bad for business!” Reading between the lines, regulation absolutely is bad for excess profits taken at the expense of other people, and that’s exactly the point. Trump has pledged generically to cut back up to 75% of all existing regulations. While a few of these may be problematic (some government regulations really don’t make sense), most are in place to stop people from hurting other people in order to enrich themselves — and that’s a good thing!

And then there is Trump’s personal wealth. He continues to be actively involved in his company. While he did set up a trust (at least we’ve been told he did), it is both transparent (the opposite of “blind” in this case), and he still retains control and can revoke the trust at any time. It’s also run by his son and CFO of his company, hardly people who will not act in his financial interests, and Trump is set to receive regular profit/loss reports. Trump still profits from a hotel in DC that directly violates federal law, and still has oversees investments that directly violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. With only public information I could write several pages on his conflicts of interest, but that’s really not needed here. They exist.

So what’s the real problem? Everyone knows that politicians profit from their jobs, particularly with sweetheart deals, books and speaking engagements after they leave office. But we also know that our elected officials are not supposed to directly profit, while in office, from their actions. They are supposed to be acting for the American people, not for themselves. This is one of the few things that politicians go to jail for if/when they are caught. And this is what conflicts of interest are all about.To be clear, there is no requirement to even prove that a conflict exists and that someone directly profited. The APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest is sufficient, and when we see that, it is logically and morally correct to assume that the conflict exists. The person with the conflict doesn’t get to prove that it isn’t there — in these cases, the job of a public official is to either avoid all appearance of conflict of interest, or recuse themselves on any decisions where the appearance of a conflict might exist. This is why most public officials divest themselves before taking office and use blind trusts.

This is the law for everyone but the President and Vice President, and it should be enforced for everyone in this administration. For the top two officers, it is only not a law because they are Constitutional elected officials, not appointees. Also in a practical sense, the President can’t recuse him/herself on anything. This is why all past presidents in the modern era have divested themselves of private holdings and put them into a truly blind trust, with no knowledge of where their money is invested. It’s not that the laws don’t apply to the Pres and VP — rather that they SHOULD be doing these things, and eventually could answer to a higher law.

It’s also in the Constitution, and it’s called impeachment. Remember that word, it may be important sooner rather than later.