West Point’s Honor Code Meets Trump’s Cronyism Code
The man who built a career on lies, deception and self-serving corruption is now reshaping the leadership of an institution built on integrity, starting with Michael Flynn, an admitted liar.
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
That’s the honor code for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. And now Donald Trump is naming the folks who will oversee that institute. This is one of those weird historical moments that you think might be a good hook for a novel, but could never happen in real life.
Trump is a man defined by deceit, lying on an astonishing scale, inflating the value of his buildings, draining a so-called charity for personal gain, running a fraudulent “university” that preyed on hopeful students and, of course, cheating on at least one, but likely at least a couple of his wives.
Last month, Trump purged the oversight boards at all three military academies, declaring that they were “infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues.” And now, this same man is handpicking new overseers, including for West Point, an institution built on an honor code that forbids lying, cheating, stealing, and putting up with anybody who does any of that. Talk about irony, right?
So who has Trump placed on the board that oversees the academy? Michael Flynn, a man who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat and, quite possibly, could have ended up in jail if Trump hadn’t pardoned him. You remember the Trump pardons, right? He also freed up convicted felons who assaulted cops in the Jan. 6 riot, and Steve Bannon, who was charged with defrauding donors in a bogus border-wall scheme.
West Point, Michael Flynn and Donald Trump, who beat the Vietnam draft with bone spurs in his heels found by a doctor who rented office space from Trump’s father. Quite the threesome.
“There is honor among thieves,” the old saying goes, suggesting that even criminals stick to a moral code. But in this case, the only code that matters is blind loyalty to Trump, which isn’t what immediately comes to mind as being moral and it’s a far cry from the honor code that’s defined West Point for generations.
I know quite a bit about the academy’s honor code. In 1976, while covering West Point for the Middletown Times-Herald Record, I was the first reporter to break the story of a cheating scandal at the academy. The scandal thrust the honor code into the national spotlight, sparking intense debate about its strict enforcement and whether it was truly effective.
I was just a kid at the time, in my early 20s. I started at the Record as a sports reporter before moving over into news, and had interviewed many of the school’s football players in that role. I initially found out about the cheating scandal from a player I knew from my time in sports. He hadn’t cheated, he insisted during a phone call, but he was advised that since he knew about it happening, he might be thrown out of the academy as well as the actual cheaters.
It took awhile to build that single phone call into a news story, but when it broke, it really, really broke, sending the academy into a legal tailspin.
In all, 151 cadets were accused of violating the honor code, and 90 were expelled. The scandal led to a major review of West Point's strict, zero-tolerance honor system, which had traditionally resulted in automatic expulsion for any violation. After public scrutiny, about 50 of the dismissed cadets were later allowed to return and graduate.
While the wording of the code remains the same to this day, the scandal led to intense scrutiny of the Honor System, particularly in regards to whether its rigid, all-or-nothing approach was effective. Its enforcement was reformed to make it more educational and rehabilitative rather than strictly punitive.
Instead of automatic expulsion, the system introduced a "second chance" option for first-time violators who showed genuine remorse and commitment to rehabilitation. The process of investigating and adjudicating honor violations has become more structured, allowing for better evidence gathering and appeals, and honor instruction is now a continuous part of cadet training.
And now comes Trump, and Michael Flynn. You have to wonder how the West Point honor code might adjust moving forward as a result.
According to The New York Times yesterday, other allies of the president appointed to oversight boards for our military academies included Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist whose organization aided Trump in the 2024 election, Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, and Maureen Bannon, Steve Bannon’s daughter.
Spicer, you might recall, drew criticism after his first press conference when he falsely claimed that Trump's inauguration had the largest audience ever, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A day later, the phrase “alternative facts” first hit the public, blurted out by Kellyanne Conway, then a senior adviser to Trump during an interview on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
Alternative facts, or straight up lies? I’ll let you make the call. But it doesn’t come close to meeting the West Point honor code.
Kirk was appointed to the board overseeing the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Before Trump took office in January, Kirk assailed the existing U.S. military leadership, arguing that the armed forces had gone soft, noting on his talk radio show in November that “the military is not a place for touchy feelings and nonsense, OK?”
I hate to think what will happen to the honor code with him around. So far this month, West Point — working on orders from the Trump administration — has shut down groups that include the Asian-Pacific Forum Club, the Latin Cultural Club, the National Society of Black Engineers Club, the Society of Women Engineers Club, the Corbin Forum (a decades-old leadership club for female cadets), and the Spectrum, a gay-straight alliance, according to news reports.
There’s That Word Again
At the same time, the Trump administration has been carrying out a sweeping purge of top officers, diversity initiatives, transgender service members and other policies and personnel within the military at large that Trump has complained made the armed forces “woke,” a word the Triumpistas love using, bastardizing its original meaning.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the word "woke" became a call among black Americans for the nation to stay informed and vigilant against racial injustice. Out of those origins, it became one of the most overused, weaponized, and politicized words in American culture.
Progressives define “woke” as social awareness and a commitment to justice, values that, in theory, should foster unity and mutual respect among military service members from different backgrounds, at a time when roughly a third of all members are non-white. Meanwhile, the Trumpistas use “woke” as a curse word, constantly repeating it in a way that implies excessive political correctness or radical leftist ideology.
The administration has sought to stop the “woke” practice of allowing transgender Americans from serving in the military, Yesterday, a federal judge blocked this action, writing in her opinion that such a ban “invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment” of the U.S. Constitution.
The administration’s lawyers argued that the courts must defer to military judgment. But in a 79-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes wrote that the government had thrown together a ban based on next-to-no evidence. According to the Defense Department, about 4,200 current service members, or about 0.2 percent of the military, are transgender, The New York Times wrote in its coverage of the case.
“They include pilots, senior officers, nuclear technicians and Green Berets as well as rank-and-file soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines,” Times reporter Dave Philipps wrote. “Despite their relatively small numbers,” he added, “they have been a disproportionate focus of the Trump administration.”
During my time covering West Point, I truly enjoyed visiting the beautiful grounds at the academy, and talking with the cadets I met there. I was in my early 20s and so were they, and there was a comfort level there that an older reporter might not have had.
A Difficult Task
Once the scandal hit the news, though, no one was talking except the lawyers — who were military officers themselves — representing these cadets.
Their difficult task was to determine what the definition of honor should be at an institution like the academy, which sends officers into the world with a profound responsibility. Once graduated, these young men are entrusted with the authority to lead troops and make strategic decisions that can carry life-and-death consequences, all while expected to uphold the highest standards of integrity.
Should this authority be overseen by a man like Flynn, a former National Security Advisor in the White House who betrayed his own obligations to the nation and the U.S. Constitution by lying to the FBI for purely political purposes?
What we have here is the “Cronyism Code” vs. the “Honor Code,” and it’s hard to see, given all the actions of the Trump administration, how the honor code comes out of this unscathed. What do you think?
Oy! Flynn overseeing the military academy! Trump truly has no shame. In fact, if he can find a suitable donor, he desperately needs a shame transplant.
There is nothing that trump will not try to bend to his twisted view of the world. He's able to make it seem as if he honors all-things military even as he's raised up corrupt people like Flynn, fired military personnel from the Pentagon to the Dept. of Defense and beyond and scrubbed the Arlington National Cemetery website of the histories of Black, LGTBQ+ and female people and groups who fought and died when he would not serve.