It's an easy bet that what the Trump administration says and what it does are almost always complete opposites. The word hypocrite comes to my mind, though it seems to miss the point. No, they are much more than that because they pretend to be so moral and just in their claims. They remind me of Tartuffe from Moliere's play of the same name, the hypocrite, the impostor with his self righteous blatherings.
One day they claim to support women's health, the next they are slashing all funding to women's clinics around the world. As they pretend to care about equal rights for all, they are quietly cutting LGBTQ rights in an attempt to make them invisible; much like the clearly offensive way the White House left out the Luxembourg Prime Minister's husband from the 1st spouses EU picture last week.
Then there was last weeks announcement by White House spokeswoman Kelly Love that, "The Trump Administration has an unwavering commitment to the civil rights of all Americans." A lovely yet ever so empty collection of words used to brace us for what would be coming in the following announcement: a complete gutting of civil rights departments across all federal government agencies. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, who audits companies with federal contracts to ensure they are not violating laws against discrimination, is soon to be but a memory. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed cutting the Environmental Justice Program that assists citizens when there are oil or chemical spills. The Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development and Department of Health and Human Services will all be cutting or slashing their civil rights programs.
"Our responsibility is to fulfill our role in a way that accords with the law,
advances public safety, and promotes respect for our legal system. This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency."
For the record, it took 12 days.
On May 22nd, Citigroup agreed to pay a fine of $97.4 million for knowingly violating banking laws in regards to reporting suspicious activity of money laundering. Citigroup bought Banamex, a Mexican banking company, in 2001. From 2007 - 2012, Banamex USA intentionally hid thousands of money laundering transactions from review. According to the Boston Globe, "As part of the agreement, Banamex USA 'admitted to criminal violations by willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering' compliance program, the Justice Department said."
Banamex USA "willfully" committed "criminal" acts. In all, there were $1.3 billion dollars in remittances that should have been flagged for review according to the law. The belief of law officials is that much of this money was from the sale of illegal narcotics.
Yet, Mr. Hard On Drug Offenders - Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has chosen to not seek the harshest charges possible in this case. In fact, he's completely dismissed all criminal charges against anyone involved. So much for a "moral and just" application of the law. Should he really want to deliver a moral and just decision, he should have fined them the full amount they laundered at the very least.
Tartuffe Sessions can mumble his sanctimonious carefully formed speeches all he wants, but he's full of it. Once again, the leaders that be have chosen to lock up those people with a few ounces of pot, but refused to hold those making billions from said drug trade to the same standard.
But what did anyone expect but pure hypocrisy from Tartuffe...I mean Jeff Sessions and this administration?
