For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.  Matthew 25:29

That looks to me to be just right for Trump and family.

If someone put a gun to your head and extracted money from you by force, you would not be impressed if the criminal said this was not robbery because he was being frank and open about it.  Yet that seems to be the response of Trump to complaints about his deriving undreamed-of millions as a consequence of his being elected President – when he correctly believed that the alternative would have been imprisonment.

That of course is in the US.  Let me put three propositions about what I understand about our law here.

• People in public office hold positions of trust.  (The legal epithet is ‘fiduciary’.)
• As such, they are liable to account, in a forensic sense, for any profit they derive as a result of holding that office of trust.
• This liability does not depend on fraud or bad faith (want of bona fides) – it arises from the mere fact that a profit was made.

The leading case was English.  A trading company incorporated a subsidiary in order to expand the business.  For this purpose, the directors had to put in extra capital.  When the shares in the subsidiary were sold, the directors stood to gain – they made a profit.  When they were replaced, the company said that they had to account to it for that profit.  Although there had been no dishonesty at all, the action succeeded.  The courts held that it did not matter whether the company had been damaged or had benefited from the transaction.  However honest or well meaning, the profiteer could not escape the risk of being called to account.  As a leading text comments (Law for Directors, Gibson, Federation Press, 2003, 48), ‘Directors who stand to gain directly and personally from contracts with companies of which they are directors can expect to meet this stern response.’

Now, something like this would be unlikely to happen in Australia for many reasons.  I suspect that in the U S, there would be an issue of ‘standing’ – about which they get very worked up over there.  But if it arose here, I know what side I would want to be on – the side of the angels – before a judge with teeth gleaming in eager anticipation. 

And I wonder how a neutral court might respond if, after a change of government, the United States sued Trump to account for the billion or so dollars he derived from his holding of public office.  At least his accountants have relieved such a court of an inquiry into quantum.  There would be plenty to go around, in this wonderful new Golden Age, so splendidly revealed in an acrid swamp in the beating heart of the Capitol.

And it would not take much ingenuity to deploy the law about aiding breach of trust to join the sons.  I knew people who tapped a bank for millions for allowing a crooked partner to rip out cash from a law firm’s trust account.  And then the attorneys at the other end would know that they might forfeit their professional indemnity insurance if they let one client get within fifty miles of the witness box.

Happy Fourth!