Did you happen to notice the other day that Donald Trump officially confessed to crimes? That he acknowledged, in a court settlement, that he’d looted his own charitable foundation for personal and political gain? That he raised nearly $3 million for military veterans in January 2016, but admitted that he never gave the money to the vets – instead steering it to his presidential campaign?

If you missed that news, you’re certainly excused. Compared to Trump’s laundry list of impeachable acts, the corruption he wrought on his charitable foundation – and his betrayal of the vets he purported to champion – seems like the equivalent of a parking ticket. But that news does not deserve to be buried forever in a forgotten news cycle. Let’s exhume and examine it, because, after all, this is Veterans Day.

For starters, it’s quite rare for a purported president of the United States to confess to crimes. But that’s what he did, while agreeing to settle a lawsuit filed against him last year by the state of New York. Under federal law, money raised by a tax-exempt charitable foundation must be used for charitable purposes. It’s illegal to use charitable money in a political campaign; it’s illegal to divert charitable money for one’s personal use. That crime is called “self-dealing,” which is what happened when Trump (for instance) took $20,000 from his Donald J. Trump Foundation to buy a portrait of himself, took $250,000 to settle some lawsuits against his businesses, and sent a $25,000 campaign contribution to Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, who was deciding whether to investigate the fake Trump University’s scamming of Florida consumers. (One month after receiving Trump’s illegal donation, Bondi decided not to investigate.)

But ripping off military veterans was surely his most contemptible act. Under the auspices of his foundation, he raised $2.8 million that night in January 2016, touting it as money for vets. But instead, as the judge’s ruling stated last Thursday, the money was used “to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.” Decide for yourself which offense against the military is worse: looting the vets’ charity money, or (via his allies) smearing a Purple Heart vet who serves on the National Security Council.

When the lawsuit against Trump was filed in June ’18 – alleging that he’d long used the charitable foundation as a personal checking account – he predictably attacked it as phony. On Twitter, he complained that “the sleazy New York Democrats…are doing everything they can to sue me…I won’t settle this case!”

Well, he settled the case. He agreed to pay $2 million in punitive damages (assuming he’ll actually do it), and to donate the $1.8 million still in the charity’s til to a handful of organizations, including the United Way. He also accepted the court’s stipulation that if he ever engages in any future charitable activities in New York (not likely), he must be closely monitored. Plus (and this is not satire), his three children have to take training classes on how to be better board members. They were listed as foundation board members, but the board never met during the last 20 years of the foundation’s existence. Trump shuttered it at the end of 2018.

So, please ponder this: The so-called Commander-in-Chief, who has possession of the nuclear codes, is officially unfit to even run a charity.

But even though he has officially confessed to breaking the law, he’s still insisting that he did nothing wrong. On Friday, he tweet-whined about being a victim: “My charity was great…And what happened is, instead of saying ‘Thank you,’ they hit me with a lawsuit.”

That should be more than enough to keep his acolytes in line. If they’re fine with betraying America on the world stage, what’s the big deal about charity corruption and looting money earmarked for vets? Yesterday, on Twitter, I scrolled for feedback from Trump fans, and here’s the gist of what I found:

Some said that it was his foundation and he could use the funds as he wished. Some said the lawsuit was just another anti-Trump smear. Some said the judge was corrupt. Some refused to believe he stole vets’ money and confessed to a crime in a court settlement. Some simply quoted Trump’s tweeted claim that his charity was great. Some simply said that they hadn’t read anything about it at all.

Pete Buttegieg asked the other day, “How many more affronts to flag and uniform will we tolerate?” Plenty, it appears. Isaac Asimov, the scientist and writer, said it best nearly four decades ago: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”

Nobody has worked that American cult better than Trump. Politically speaking, and a confession of criminality notwithstanding, that’s why he’s still alive.