What should the character of a government official be? Are there any ethical parameters? The answers to such questions have great effects on the character of a nation. They have been relevant since practically the origin of human government, and they remain relevant even in a republican form of government like America. Decades after Congress enacted civil service reforms in the Pendleton Act of 1883, New York machine politician George Washington Plunkitt infamously described his political philosophy in 1905, “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.” Government officials will always act in their own self-interest, but should we the people tolerate such behavior?

Consider a fuller statement. “I see my opportunity and I take it,” Plunkitt claimed, in journalist William Riordon’s “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.” “I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before. … Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that’s honest graft.”

What Plunkitt defended as “honest graft” would be more accurately described as “insider trading.” There is a fundamental conflict of interest when public servants use their positions to enrich themselves rather than, well, serving the public.

The temptation for government officials to pursue their own gain has existed for at least three and a half millennia, since it was addressed by Moses in the law of ancient Israel. Judges “shall judge the people with righteous judgment,” God commanded through him. “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous” (Deuteronomy 16:18-19).

The same principle goes for the Israelite king, who “must not acquire many horses for himself,” “shall not acquire many wives for himself,” “nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold” (Deuteronomy 17:16-17).

These biblical guidelines are relevant today in light of President Trump’s financial disclosure report on Tuesday, which reported an income of $2.2 billion for 2025. According to The Wall Street Journal, “President Trump’s forays into cryptocurrency delivered him a windfall of more than $1 billion last year,” including “$635 million in royalties through an entity linked to Trump’s memecoin, which launched just days before his inauguration, and more than $500 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, the Trumps’ flagship crypto venture.”

The cryptocurrency windfall is just the highlight of President Trump’s income during his first year back in office. Trump also reported as income “at least $86.5 million in legal settlements,” “$4.7 million in income last year from Trump-branded watches,” and “$1.9 million in royalties from his ‘Save America’ book,” the Journal itemized.

Trump also reported a 54% increase in income (from $50 million to $77 million) from his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2025 compared to 2024 and an 11% increase (from $110 million to $122 million) at his Trump National Doral resort. The disclosure also included a $6,484-per-month pension from the Screen Actors Guild, gifts “totaling more than $370,000,” and “multimillion-dollar licensing deals linked to real-estate developers stretched from Romania to India to across the Middle East.”

For perspective, the president’s statutory salary is $400,000, with a $50,000 expense account.

Payday has come not only to President Trump, but to his family as well. First Lady Melania Trump made $10.7 million for a documentary about her, in addition to $6 million from “nonfungible tokens,” a type of asset largely indistinguishable from the emperor’s new wardrobe. President Trump’s sons have also made heavy investments into drones, cryptocurrency, and real estate since their father’s election.

Yours truly does not claim any expertise in the finer points of financial ethics in government. He only knows there are strict rules, and that a massive increase in income while in office carries at least the appearance of impropriety. The appearance of impropriety is exacerbated by the fact that Trump has aggressively lobbied against legislation regulating cryptocurrency, the very industry in which he reportedly made a small fortune last year.

“The president’s conflicts of interest with the crypto industry are unprecedented,” observed Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center. “We have never seen a president have direct conflicts of interest with his financial holdings and the policies he supports.”

Some of President Trump’s other business ventures, such as his memecoin and book, target his political base as their commercial audience, thus financially profiting from his politically popularity.

On Wednesday, President Trump took his maiden flight on a luxury jet gifted to the Trump presidency by the nation of Qatar to serve as a temporary Air Force One. Both sizable and with a personal touch, the gift from a sovereign nation has set many heads wondering whether it affected U.S. foreign policy toward Qatar.

The point is not to single out President Trump for special criticism. But as the sitting president who is apparently profiting from his office, he falls in for his fair share. Other politicians have grown their net worth considerably after leaving office — but mostly after leaving office. Those who grew their wealth in office, whether through taking bribes or insider trading — well, that’s usually a task for the House and Senate Ethics Committees.

Lest it be too quickly forgotten, President Biden’s family also allegedly engaged in extensive trafficking of their proximity to the president (and vice president before that), expanding their business operations in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere. In an act held to be widely unsavory, Biden granted a blanket pardon to his family members during his final hours in office. Perhaps the most unjust act of political warfare of the past decade (which is saying a lot) was the decision by House Democrats to impeach President Trump for daring to try and uncover the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings.

But just because the Biden family apparently abused the office of the president for their own personal enrichment does not make it right for the Trump family to do the same.

I write of generalities, impressions. Neither President Trump nor any of his family members have been charged with specific financial wrongdoing during his second term in office (although one imagines that politicized prosecutors under the next Democratic administration will certainly try). The point is that Trump has embraced the sort of naked opportunism (ala Plunkitt) that most modern politicians have sought to avoid. And thus, he appears to fall short of the biblical ideal for upstanding government officials.

However, while Scripture sets out an ideal for government, it also presents a realistic view of what a human government will be able to achieve. When the people of Israel demanded a king, the prophet Samuel foretold that the king would take, take, take from them until they cried out under the oppression (1 Samuel 8:10-18). Even in Israel’s golden age, good kings like David and Solomon broke every one of the prohibitions in Deuteronomy, accruing for themselves horses, wives, and wealth. King David even committed adultery with the wife of a trusted soldier (2 Samuel 11:4) and had him killed to cover up the crime (2 Samuel 11:14-15).

While Scripture maintains high standards for government officials, it also recognizes mankind’s fallen condition.

The military dictatorship of the first-century Roman Empire was even more brutal and wicked than the kingdom of Israel. Yet the apostle could write that “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God,” and “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad … for he is God’s servant for your good … an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-4).

Thus, even though human governments are often evil and corrupt, there is still a real sense in which they serve God’s purposes by executing earthly justice. In other words, even governments of bad men can implement good policies, so the Christian need not despair of earthly governments.

One parable of Jesus illustrates this point. “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming’” (Luke 18:2-5). The point of the parable is that God is more just than this unjust judge and will speedily “give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night” (Luke 18:7). But the comparison only works because it is also true that corrupt government officials will sometimes do the right thing, simply for their own self-interest.

Indeed, America’s system of government relies on this fact. The first line of defense is the accountability provided by routine elections. But beyond that the entire network of checks and balances works to turn official’s selfish interests toward beneficial ends.

“A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions,” explained Publius (James Madison) in Federalist 51. “The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.”

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place,” elaborated Madison. “It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

Here, Madison launched into perhaps the most famous words in all the Federalist papers. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary,” he wrote. “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

The Christian must admit that Madison’s pronouncement suffers from too liberal a dose of Lockean liberalism. The case is too nuanced to lay out here, but Scripture teaches that government existed even before the Fall, meaning that man would have government even if every man were an “angel.” For example, even if every driver was completely safe and responsible, someone would still have to decide whether everyone was to drive on the right lane or the left lane.

Still, Madison’s overall point is well-taken. Since man is fallen, there must be constraints on government, or corrupt government officials will fall into grave evil.

Whatever the context — whether a representative democracy or a military dictatorship — the one absolute constraint on all governments is the power of the God who established them. And while Christians may have more or less influence over the policy (or private actions) of government officials, they do have immediate access to the throne room of God.

For this reason, Paul urged Christian churches “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Christians can always pray for better government than we have now. We can pray that even corrupt officials, whether in our preferred party or another one, will implement just policies for the good of people made in God’s image, and for the peace and prosperity of the church. We can even pray that those corrupt officials may receive repentance and faith from the Supreme Lord of all, Jesus Christ.