When I first heard saw headlines about this I thought it was so outlandish that it couldn’t possibly be real. Yet here we are.

It’s amazing how much corruption is occurring for so little money. A million dollars a month is peanuts for such clear graft.

I, too, was surprised at this but widespread corruption actually has this effect. As prosecutability goes down, you just move further down the market. In the limit, you pay the President $50 to get out of a $80 parking ticket. He can’t exactly charge you $100k for that privilege. It’s not the market clearing price. Previously he was limited by the enforcement side so the ask price was nowhere near the bid price.

Now, prosecution immune, he can access the remainder of the market.

I think this is one big reason why bribes are commonplace in India at all levels while they are reserved only for the most profitable of endeavours in the US - enforcement. Consequently, the relative pricing matches that.

I suppose one realization is that a corruption index could look at the price of the cheapest government corruption as a proxy for how widespread it is.

Trump Media lost $239 million (IIRC) last year. A million a month isn't going to save them.