Here was the last question of the evening at Mike Lawler’s tumultuous town hall event on Sunday night:

The Emoluments Clause is designed to ensure the public officials prioritize the interest of U.S. citizens against … personal gain or foreign influence. President Trump … now has his own cryptocurrency. The government has no idea, no idea who’s putting money in, who’s taking money out. They don’t know who the individuals are or the governments are. He makes money on every investment trade. He has his own social media platform that financially benefits him when he exclusively posts on it in order to increase members, … which increases his revenues. Not to mention the gold watches, the Bibles, the $2 billion from the Saudis, … the $2 billion for his son-in-law. If this was the Biden administration, you’d be demanding a hearing. So why are we not demanding a hearing?

Mike Lawler’s answer:

Now, obviously when … when the Democrats took control of Congress during the first administration, they did do numerous hearings on this. When Joe Biden was in office, yes, the oversight committee did hearings with respect to his son’s foreign dealings. At the end of the day, to me, the issue of crypto, um, we are actually in the process through the Financial Services Committee of passing federal regulatory framework when it comes to crypto, because we don’t have one. There is not currently a regulatory framework, uh, which certainly is imperative. As I said before, uh, earlier, when it comes to the issue of people trading stocks, I don’t believe in that if you are a elected official, certainly at the federal level, I think it should be precluded. And so certainly, one of the things that we can look at, obviously, is, once we have a federal regulatory framework, uh, is how, is how we might deal with that with respect to cryptocurrency. But with respect to, uh, any, any type of investigation, at the end of the day, if you own a business, if you have business in trust or a corporate holding, which is what most of, uh, the President’s, uh, business dealings are, they’re corporate. That is a separate legal entity. And his sons, as far as I understand, are running the business.

Huh? This was not a question about the regulation of cryptocurrency. It was about the blatant corruption of Donald Trump. Mike Lawler’s answer: no reason to investigate since Trump’s business interests are housed in separate legal entities run by his sons, “as far as I understand.” Drive safely, folks.

Let’s see if this troubles you, Mike. Trump just promoted a “contest” offering a private dinner with him at his golf club in Virginia, for the top 220 investors in his $Trump meme coin, followed by a VIP tour of the White House for the top 25. The meme coin price shot up 60% upon announcement of the contest, and generated $900K in trading fees alone for Trump and company.

This is not a campaign event. Profits go straight to Donald Trump’s bank account. Does that look like a blind trust to you? Or more like pay to play?

Meanwhile, Mike Lawler continues to put in time on CNN denying that he will vote to cut Medicaid. He will just ensure that undocumented migrants (all of whom are “illegals” in GOP parlance, no such thing as asylum) are denied emergency care.

Some would argue that the waste, fraud and abuse starts in the Oval Office.

No worries about that tour group at the White House, says Mike. That’s just Trump’s business, being run by a corporate entity.

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For a fuller account of the “100 Days of Corruption,” watch this from Chris Murphy on the Senate floor last night. Yes, I’m talking to you, Mike. I know you missed this while you were on CNN.