Collins: Hard times for friends of Trump

Do you think there's anything worse than being a Friend of Trump? Almost everyone he's attached to seems headed south in the most embarrassing ways possible.

Take Rep. Duncan Hunter, a big Donald Trump supporter from San Diego who made news this past week when he was indicted on charges of using campaign funds for personal expenses. And then made more when he tried to pin the whole thing on his wife.

Hunter was the second House member to endorse Donald Trump when he ran for president. The first was Chris Collins of New York, who was recently indicted on charges of insider trading. This is not something we would normally blame on the president - except that Collins orchestrated the alleged crime over a cellphone during a picnic on the White House lawn. Maybe there's just something in the air there that makes everyone who sniffs it want to commit the sleaziest crimes possible.

And Hunter, too, seems pretty … special. Over the years, plenty of elected officials have been charged with using political donations for personal goodies. But has anybody else ever been accused of buying clothes at a golf club shop and then billing them to the campaign as “balls for the wounded warriors”? That's pretty much the bottom of the heap. Except maybe for the $204 round of golf and drinks that he referred to as “a Christian thing.”

Maybe the president's pals and admirers get into trouble only because they're trying to be like the Big Guy. Hunter's friends might want to note that a certain president had a charitable foundation that once spent $10,000 on a painting of Trump to hang at his golf course. (Have you noticed, people, how frequently golf comes up in these stories? Just asking.)

Maybe Hunter's donors didn't care whether their contributions were actually going to pay for 30 tequila shots at a bachelor party. But you the concerned citizen have a right to be ticked off as hell, especially since Hunter is a self-advertised fiscal conservative who spends a lot of time whining about deficit spending. While managing, according to the indictment, to have overdrawn his personal bank account 1,100 times over seven years.

It's a metaphor for all the members of Congress who vote to reduce taxes for rich constituents, pile up pork for their districts, send military spending through the roof and shovel crop support payments to sugar barons while demanding an end to food stamps. We could go on and on, but it's actually more fun to return to the sins of Hunter.

Who, on Thursday, hit a new high by blaming everything on his wife. And, um, his military service. “I'm saying when I went to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney, and she handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when I got into Congress,” Hunter told Fox News. “Because I'm gone five days a week, I'm home for two.”

Way too busy to wonder where the money for that trip to Italy came from.

Later, just to drive the message home, he pointed out that his wife, Margaret, was his campaign manager: “Whatever she did, that will be looked at, too, I'm sure. But I didn't do it.”

Really, I'm not sure even Trump would throw his wife under the bus so eagerly. Although Rudy Giuliani has been caught peddling the idea that those hush-money payoffs were just to protect Melania from heartbreak.

And, by the way, remember when I told you Hunter was the second House member to endorse Donald Trump, behind the recently indicted Chris Collins? No. 3 was Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, who managed to get through the last two years without being indicted for anything. Although we do feel compelled to point out that DesJarlais was one of those right-to-life politicians who took an entirely new look at abortion when a woman he was committing adultery with told him she was pregnant.

No. 4 was Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, whom Trump rewarded with a nomination to be the country's drug czar. That didn't work out after reporters documented Marino's efforts to hamstring the Drug Enforcement Administration's war against the opioid crisis. Which followed the arrival of nearly $100,000 in donations from the pharmaceutical lobby. No indication, however, that any of it went to tequila.

And by the way, do you remember who the first Republican to endorse Trump in the Senate was? Yes! Jeff Sessions!

We were reminded of that just this week, when Trump - so ticked off at the Department of Justice's failure to protect him from justice - gave an interview to Fox News in which he said the fact that Sessions was first to put his hand up was “the only reason I gave him the job” of attorney general.

And do you know who Hunter originally blamed for all his troubles with the law? Yes! Yes!

“This is the new Department of Justice. This is the Democrats' arm of law enforcement,” he told reporters. “That's what's happening right now, and it's happening with Trump and it's happening with me.”

If only Trump had made Hunter attorney general instead. There'd be no Mueller investigation, but the FBI would have had one heck of a good time golfing.

Gail Collins is a columnist for the New York Times.

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com