Trump delivers the death blow to ethics: Ross K. Baker

President Trump's nominee for secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, has admitted to hiring an undocumented immigrant as a household employee. So has Wilbur Ross, his choice for secretary of Commerce. Both men asserted that when they learned of this problem, the employees were dismissed and all taxes applicable to their employment were paid. Ross was even congratulated by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune and the panel's ranking Democrat, Bill Nelson, for being "forthcoming."

The contrast between the two contemporary infractions by presidential nominees and those a couple of decades ago is dramatic, and suggests a much greater tolerance for ethical lapses by both the members of Congress who are charged with scrutinizing the ethics of nominees and by a public that seems indifferent.

In March 1986, Kimba Wood, a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for Southern New York, hired a babysitter from Trinidad. The woman was in the country illegally but at the time, Congress had not yet passed legislation making the hiring of such individuals an offense. Several months later, Congress got around to it and did not make it retroactive.

Then, in early 1993, President Clinton was desperately searching for a nominee for the post of attorney general. He was reportedly under pressure from first lady Hillary Clinton to select a woman. His first choice, Zoe Baird, had hired a pair of illegal residents as a babysitter and driver. During the presidential transition, Baird told the transition team about this. She was assured by team members and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden that it would not be a problem. But it would prove to be a very big problem, one that ultimately compelled Clinton to request that Baird withdraw her name from nomination. At that point Clinton turned to Kimba Wood.

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If either of the two deserved a pass, it was Wood, whose actions did not even violate the law because the employment predated the illegality of such hiring. So finely attuned was the public opinion to ethical lapses that an unwise but not illegal action by a nominee was sufficient to sink her chances for a Cabinet post.

Her withdrawal took place six years after Douglas Ginsburg, President Reagan's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, admitted to smoking marijuana as a student and as a law professor. When this was revealed, Ginsburg requested that his name be withdrawn.

We were stern, gimlet-eyed judges of the ethics of public figures back then. Perhaps our descent began around the time that presidential candidate Bill Clinton adroitly dealt with the accusation of past marijuana use with the implausible claim that he had not inhaled. The slide into ethical relativism accelerated with Clinton's denial of various affairs and his casuistry on the subject of what constituted "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky.

We were becoming inured to virtually all deeds short of homicide. And even our once keen revulsion at hypocrisy was being dulled by public figures such as Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., a vigorous right-to-lifer who, it was revealed in 2012, encouraged his ex-wife to have two abortions while they were together. He was returned to Congress in subsequent elections.

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It was candidate Donald Trump who administered the coup de grace to our moral indignation with his multiple marriages and mistresses, vainglorious boasting about everything from his business acumen to his sexual prowess, and willful refusal to release his income tax returns.

At this time, it is hard to imagine a transgression short of documented war crimes or child molestation that would disqualify someone for public office. This transformation does not make us like the French, with their relaxed attitudes about marital infidelity. It more nearly approximates a free pass for the slipshod, the craven and the promiscuous to get the seal of approval to hold high office.

Sadly, religious conservatives, once our last line of defense against moral slackness, have let us down by not thundering from their pulpits against the unprincipled and unscrupulous. Perhaps opposition to abortion alone gets a candidate a clean bill of health on all other transgressions. Civic rectitude no longer appears on our checklist of qualifications for public office, and we are the poorer for its absence.

Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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