After Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders purchased a very high-priced lectern for her very poor state, the state legislature initiated an audit, which was released Monday. As corruption goes, the report depicts a small-time, dimly comic routine — a state purchase seemingly padded with a generous allowance for a political crony of the governor. In its basic dishonesty and subversion of the public interest, however, the episode is a strong measure of how completely Trumpism now defines the Republican Party.

In 2023, the governor’s office hired a Republican consultant who appears to be a traveling buddy of Sanders to provide a lectern. The purchase price, which started at an impressive $21,475 before a subsequent $3,000 “preferred customer” discount, included a $2,500 “consulting fee” and a $554 “credit card processing fee.” An anonymous state whistleblower claimed the governor’s office altered documents related to the purchase.

The audit report noted that similar high-end podiums can be purchased starting at $7,000. (State Democrats purchased a lectern from state surplus for $5.) There was never an itemized bill or any other documentation of what exactly justified the lectern’s thousands of dollars in additional costs. Nor was there any notion of what “consulting” had informed the purchase.

When a pesky Arkansas blogger began asking questions, the cost to Arkansas taxpayers was suddenly reimbursed by the state Republican Party, which controls both houses of the state legislature. Prior to the blogger’s inquiries last September, the report says, “There was no indication the Governor’s Office was seeking reimbursement for the cost of the podium and road case.”

Sanders was Donald Trump’s White House press secretary during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the symbiosis between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian intelligence agents engaged in sabotage of US democracy. For Sanders, the White House appears to have been a school for scandal. Lies were the coin of the realm, and she spent generously — at one point declaring that FBI agents had telephoned her to convey their delight when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Later, speaking under oath to investigators from Mueller’s office, she acknowledged that her assertion was untrue.

Yet the experience served her well. Sanders’ approach to the Arkansas audit is modeled on Trump’s obstruction of the Mueller investigation and his subsequent lies about its conclusions. Sanders’ office has attacked the audit as a “waste of taxpayer resources,” just as Trump attacked the cost of the Mueller investigation. And the vendors involved in supplying the lectern to Sanders, much like Trump cronies Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, refused to cooperate with investigators — always a sure sign that everything’s legit.

The legislative audit staff “made multiple attempts, through direct communication and through the Governor’s Office, to confirm specific customizations of the podium with Miller’s Presentation Furniture, Salem Strategies, and Beckett Events and received no responses,” the report states. “Additionally, the Governor’s Office was unable to provide formal purchasing documents or a detailed invoice indicating podium customizations requested at the time of order.” In other words, the lectern was so expensive allegedly because it was customized to Sanders’ unique specifications. Yet there is no record of Sanders requesting any custom details.

The Arkansas legislative audit found seven instances of the governor’s office’s “potential noncompliance” with the law. In an exact echo of Trump’s preeminent lie about the Mueller report, Sanders’ office promptly declared that the audit “exonerates the governor’s office.” It also noted that the podium and its travel case “are real and exist.” So there you have it: Case Closed.

Just as Trump benefited from Attorney General William Barr burying the Mueller report in misdirection and obfuscation , Sanders likely can count on a lack of curiosity from Arkansas’ Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin. After all, what’s a few thousand dollars in a state budget of $6.3 billion? It’s not like Trump’s Truth Social scam, which is already bleeding gullible MAGA investors of millions, or his rip-off of the poor students who trusted Trump University, or his systematic cheating of small contractors who worked on Trump projects, or his diversion of tax-deductible foundation funds to his personal use.

No, Sanders’ scam isn’t on the scale of any of those supremely Trumpy endeavors. But, hey, it’s a start.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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