Opinion: Donald Trump purports to honor the bible but is actually money-hungry and lustful

The super rich in our overwrought world are awash in money and awash in debt. Praise the gods of technology for computers, along with accountants and attorneys who keep track of it all, and for banks all over the world to hide it from prying eyes. Really, is it anyone else's business? Well, yes, at times — like now.

There's Trump, Kushner, Bezos, Musk, the Koch brothers and the list goes on — our very own American fast money, publicity hungry celebrities. They borrow billions, owe billions, hustle for billions, use their wealth to influence and control politicians and count anyone not in that maelstrom as lesser mortals and “losers.”

So we have to have other computers, attorneys and accountants, plus prosecutors, to follow the money and discern how it was gotten, whence it came and whither it goes. That is how we try to hold accountable those whose gains were ill-gotten and whose losses and debts put them in jeopardy with their banks and other billionaires as well as with the law.

What would we do without investigators and prosecutors to pull away the veil of shady, artful obfuscation? Now we begin to see it emerge: the vast world of high roller, money-hungry persons who are currently using our government to enhance their greedy self-enrichment, and in the process, are dismantling our democratic institutions. The Bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil."

That may be true, but lust runs a close second, and may be the joker that throws a monkey wrench into money machine gears. Hiding and laundering all that money is complicated. Lust is not complicated. But when lust needs to be hidden and covered up, money comes out of the safe. Track the latter and we stumble on the former, and the carefully hidden moving of the money is illegal and can be, and is now being, prosecuted.

How wonderfully ironic that the careful machinations involved in hiding and moving a lot of money is undone by the base and common reality of high roller lust. Our former president may dodge, delay and finesse his way around his criminal indictments for trying to steal the 2020 election and illegally holding onto classified government documents for his own ego and future benefits. But his sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll and the monetary damages assessed, plus the reins on his business operations, are causing him to scramble for support and rage at the courts and Justice Department.

Also, his sexual affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, while his wife was nursing their newborn son, required numerous tricky financial manipulations and willing accomplices to keep her quiet about it. He swears that none of it ever happened, but prosecutors have copies of the checks.

To make matters worse, “The Donald” and his buddy, David Pecker, a New York scandal sheet publisher, conspired to pay Karen McDougal for her silence about their affair by buying her tell-all article with a do-not-disclose contract, and then not publishing it. They referred to it as a “catch and kill” arrangement.

He swears it had nothing to do with keeping the story under wraps before the 2016 election, especially after the Access Hollywood tapes were shown and his lustful modus operandi was caught on video.

Trump and his cronies understood that voters might not look favorably on having a lecherous liar as president, so they tried to hide it. The money and the lies worked long enough to get him elected so he could bring his unprincipled hucksterism to the White House.

Now we get to watch the artful dodger bob and weave as he tries to meet the bail bonds he must post in order to appeal the sexual assault and business fraud judgments against him. He and his ardent supporters should read the Bible that they piously claim to honor and that he uses as a prop in a photo op.

The Bible, including the one he was waving, has another important maxim: “What is done in the dark will come to the light.” A lot of Americans have seen the light and refuse to have an amoral, greedy, arrogant, aging egotist as our leader. Vote!

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Rev. Rollin Russell is a retired pastor of the United Church of Christ and professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Trump cares more about money and power than he does people