Vice President Mike Pence refuses to hold Trump to any sort of ethical standards, and his own party is calling him out for it.
A Republican group concerned about Donald Trump's rampant corruption released an ad on Thursday taking Vice President Mike Pence to task for his complicity.
Republicans for the Rule of Law released the ad Thursday with a spot during MSNBC's "Morning Joe" news program. The minutelong ad shows Pence's hypocrisy for attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign and his unwillingness to hold Trump to any ethical standards whatsoever.
During the 2016 campaign, Pence repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton over the fact that foreign governments donated to the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was Secretary of State.
"Foreign governments cannot participate in the American political process," Pence said at the time. Yet Pence refused to condemn Trump when foreign governments spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump hotels.
Using video of Pence, the ad ends with Pence's response to allegations of Trump's numerous conflicts of interest: "Who cares?"
Pence's hypocrisy is evident even in his own actions. When he took a trip to Ireland in early September, Pence and his entire entourage stayed at a plush Trump resort that was on the other side of the country, 180 miles away from Pence's meetings. When confronted by reporters about funneling hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars into Trump's own bank account, Pence struggled to come up with a plausible reason for his hotel choice.
When Trump entered the Oval Office, he vowed to sever ties with his businesses, but he broke that promise. Instead, Trump handed day-to-day control to his sons, Eric and Don Jr., but he still has access to money generated by the businesses. In other words, every time a foreign government stays in one of Trump's properties, or whenever the Air Force goes out of its way to put military members up at Trump's property, Trump himself is cashing in.
This ad is not the first time Republicans for the Rule of Law called out Trump's corruption. Shortly after special counsel Robert Mueller's report was released, the group put out a video with three former Republican federal prosecutors saying Trump broke the law.
"In the Mueller report, there is a damning case of obstruction of justice by the president," Donald Ayer, George H.W. Bush's deputy attorney general, said in the video.
No matter what corruption Trump engages in, Pence refuses to take a moral stand. "Who cares?" he asks.
"America does, Mr. Vice President," the ad concludes. "America does."
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
