A shocking new investigation by ProPublica reveals that former President Donald Trump may have repeatedly “rewarded loyalty” from subordinates who worked in campaign, administration, and/or personal/business capacities when those individuals were subpoenaed by state and federal law enforcement agencies to sit for interviews or testify in grand jury or other judicial proceedings.

“Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company,” ProPublica writes in the report that threatens to shatter the 45th president’s image as a paragon of integrity and decency.

Ahem. It’s not like a serious outfit that does excellent investigative work like ProPublica should be expected to lard this “revelation” with that kind of tedious sarcasm, it’s just… Like maybe “It should come as no surprise to seasoned observers of how Trump operates but we were able to quantify at least part of the financial gains nine of his subordinates received in timing that largely coincides with their being subpoenaed by investigators” or something. They were comfortable enough to make a considerable number of assumptions about the reader’s prior knowledge going into this, so why not be comfortable with some sort of implicit nod at “No fucking way, right?” in the text?