If nothing else, the Main Stream Media is predictable. On Monday, a perceptive VDARE.com reader predicted that “With [Donald Trump’s] many business holdings, there is bound to be some illegal hiring or missing documentation somewhere in the mix. They will throw the scarlet ‘H for hypocrite’ at his image and see if it sticks.” Promptly, the Washington Post ran a front page story on Trump’s immigrant workers [At Trump hotel site, immigrant workers wary, by Antonio Olivo, July 6, 2015]

This comes as part of the MSM/ GOP Establishment’s joint assault on the surging Trump. The next faux-outrage: that Trump tweeted (and then deleted) “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” As I noted in a VDARE.com blog, the media, dutifully asked Jeb Bush if he took the tweet “personally” to which Bush responded: “Yeah, of course it—absolutely—and a lot of other people.” [Indignant Jeb Bush Says He Takes Donald Trump’s Remarks Personally, New York Times, July 7, 2015]. But Jeb Bush opens his pro-amnesty book Immigration Wars, “IMMIGRATION TO ME IS PERSONAL. It means my wife and my family”

Furthermore, the MSM is happy to cite Columba’s influence on Jeb’s immigration policy so long as it’s described as a good thing. Just a few examples:

• The New York Times spoke of how Columba’s “views on immigration are similar to her husband’s” and “the prospect of the nation’s first Latina first lady could be a powerful draw for Hispanic voters disenchanted with many Republicans’ hard-line stance on immigration.” [Bush Spouse Backs Jeb, but Is Wary of Family Business, By Patrick Healy & Sheryl Stolberg, February 21, 2015]
• Hanna Rosin described Columba as “what most connects him to the [immigration] issue.” [The Mysterious Columba Bush, The Atlantic, June 2015].
• The Washington Post noted that “Columba’s personal history also has political resonance, with immigration a frontline issue in the 2016 primary campaign” and sees his infamous claim that illegal immigration was an “act of love” as tied to his relationship with her. [Columba Bush’s painful, unlikely road from Mexico toward the White House, By Karen Tumulty and Mary Jordan, March 21, 2015]
• POLITICO stated “His wife’s experience is the root of his views on immigration, which put him at odds with many conservatives”[ Jeb Bush's forgotten father-in-law, by Michael Kruse, March 19, 2015]

And while Trump did not describe Columba as an illegal immigrant herself, it’s worth noting that her father was and it’s quite apparent that he had brought her to the US illegally as a child. (See Steve Sailer’s Jeb Bush's Wife Was An Illegal Alien, and his source Jeb Bush's father-in-law hopes to reconcile with daughter, By Traci Carl, Jacksonville News, February 14, 2001.)

Trump could have also mentioned that Bush’s personal connections to illegal immigrants extend beyond his wife to the hired help. Jeb Bush has described how he was shaken when his children’s illegal nanny was deported in 1991, saying “It was a difficult time for all of us.” In a glowing Washington Post profile described the deportation of one of his “many inflection points . . . in what has been a lifetime of intimate proximity to America’s Hispanic community.” [Hispanic consciousness lends weight to Jeb Bush as GOP eyes 2016 presidential race, By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Peter Wallsten,April 24, 2013].

Regardless, Trump’s critics also argue that criticizing illegal immigration will alienate all Hispanic voters. As the National Council of La Raza’s Loren McArthur [Email him] puts it: “Hispanic voters view efforts to scapegoat undocumented immigrants as attacks on the Hispanic community as a whole” [Competing for the Latino Vote in Texas, NCLR, March 21, 2014].

Now back to the other smear against Trump. The Washington Post story by Hispanic immigration reporter Antonio Olivio is heavy on fluff and light on facts, concluding

Montoya reflected on his journey as an immigrant, which now includes three U.S.-born children and a house that he and his wife own in a quiet section of Silver Spring, Md. He noted with pride that he thinks his story—one of coming to a new world, and of hard work paying off—is more impressive than that of the powerful developer whose name adorned the sign behind him as he spoke. “Actually,” he reflected, “we’re more American than him.”

While every Open Borders journalist has spouted some variation of the cliché that illegal aliens are “more American” than racist nativists, the plain fact is that it’s incredible an actual 28 year old Hispanic construction worker would say this. It is so trite that I have doubts about the veracity of the story to begin with.

Nonetheless, even if we take Olivio’s report at face value, he hasn’t established anything. He claimed to have interviewed 15 construction workers working on a future Trump hotel in Washington, DC. According to Olivio,

Several of the men, who hail mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, have earned U.S. citizenship or legal status through immigration programs targeting Central Americans fleeing civil wars or natural disasters.

Of course, once someone has obtained legal status, civil rights law forbids employers discriminating them on that basis. Thus, the extent of this “story” is that, in regard to his legal immigrant workers, Trump followed employment laws.

Olivio continues: “Others quietly acknowledged that they remain in the country illegally.” Even if this were true, as VDARE.com’s James Fulford has noted, anti-discrimination laws prevent an employer from overly scrutinizing documents.

Fifteen paragraphs into the piece, Olivio finally bothers to quote Trump’s response. His lawyer stated:

Mr. Trump, who is the 100 percent owner of the Old Post Office, hired one of the largest contractors in the world to act as the general contractor. That company is Lend Lease. They then go out and employ subcontractors to work for them. The obligation to check all workers on site is exclusive to Lend Lease. This of course assumes that the assertion regarding the employees’ status is accurate.

I would need to know more about the specifics of the contractual relationship between Trump, Lend Lease, and its subcontractors to know whether he would have any liability for the subcontractor hiring illegal aliens. But I suspect he would have none in this case—and that’s making the large assumptions that there were illegal aliens working at the site and that the subcontractor violated immigration laws.

That Trump benefits from some illegal labor that he has virtually no power to stop is no more hypocritical than libertarians who use their bête noire, the United States Post Office or Liberals who do not donate their income directly to the treasury. [Rich Libs Want Higher Taxes On Millionaires, But Won't Donate Own $$$ to Pay U.S. Debt, By Katie Bell, CNSNews, June 7, 2011]

I am the first to admit that the state of our lack of immigration enforcement often puts employers between a rock and a hard place when it comes to complying with conflicting civil rights and immigration employment regulations. VDARE.com’s criticism of the business lobby is not that they may inadvertently hire illegal aliens, but that they lobby to make it easier to hire illegal aliens and flood the country with more legal immigrants. The fact that that Trump is promoting policies that are against his economic interest as a Hotel and Casino magnate is admirable, not hypocritical.

This is not to claim that Trump’s business practices are beyond reproof. Had Olivio found concrete evidence of illegal hiring among the staff at Trump’s hotels, resorts or Casinos, he would have had a real story. However, there is no evidence to substantiate an accusation and so WaPo’s purported exposé is really a non-story.

I suspect these smears will backfire. So long as Trump has the spotlight and is associated with immigration patriotism, GOP voters will flock to him. The latest CNN poll found Donald Trump running second behind Jeb Bush among Republicans with the two receiving 12% and 19% respectively. On the issue of immigration, Jeb Bush was ranked by 18% of voters as their favorite while Trump was at 14%.

All these pseudo-controversies will do is further solidify Trump’s status as the immigration patriot candidate—and Jeb Bush as the Amnesty candidate.

May the best man win..

Washington Watcher [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway