The VSG's got himself a plateful of trouble

 We'll just bullet-point the highlights for now and see what merits deeper dives as the week unfolds. 

Suffice it to say that Trump is presently on the receiving end of the karma he's been catalyzing for some time.

• There's Steve Bannon's arrest by postal agents aboard a yacht owned by an exiled Chinese billionaire , the charges being related to his and his associates' alleged use on personal luxury items of money from a crowdfunding campaign ostensibly established to get the Mexico border wall built with private donations. 

• There's Kellyanne Conway's abrupt resignation as a senior White House advisor. She's one of those figures like Kayleigh McEnany who didn't get on board the Trump Train until there were no other GOP candidates left. Conway supported Cruz as long as he was a viable possibility. Actually, her husband George voted for the VSG in 2016 as well, having serious doubts about the VSG's ability to rise to the task of being president, but hoping for the best. I think Kellyanne's public statement is probably about right, that she needs to work on repairing relations within her family. 

• There's the tapes that Mary Trump made secretly of conversations over the last couple of years with her aunt, former federal judge Maryanne Barry, who is also Donald Trump's sister. This is stuff that didn't even appear in MT's recently published book. Barry says that the VSG has "no principles" and calls him "cruel."

• Sean Hannity, arguably the biggest suck-up in the entire VSG cult, gained weight from stress-eating and incessant vaping a short time into the Trump era, telling an associate, "If you were hearing what I'm hearing, you'd be vaping, too," referring to the multitude of private conversations that Hannity and Trump have had. Hannity has told several colleagues that Trump is bat-s--- crazy.

• Also according to the forthcoming book by Brian Stelter from which this tidbit is gleaned, several people who work at Fox News are concerned about the outsized influence at the network exerted by its hardcore Trumpists: Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and the Fox & Friends crew. 

  
  

Layer upon layer - the Ivanka / Nordstrom / Conway / Chaffetz edition

Ivanka, who in fact no longer actively manages the brand of fashion merchandise bearing her name, is, in fact, a left-leaner on a number of issues, such as paid family leave and making LGBT people employed by government feel "comfortable."

No matter, at least not to the Nordstrom chain, which pulled all products bearing her name from its stores.

Then Kellyanne Conway stepped in it this morning on Fox & Friends by urging viewers to go out and buy Ivanka-brand merchandise.

Not just poor judgement, but a legal no-no that has now come to the attention of the House Oversight Committee, bringing Jason Chaffetz and Elijah Cummings into common cause:

The two top lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee are joining forces to request an Office of Government Ethics review of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway urging TV viewers to buy Ivanka Trump's merchandise. 

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), confirmed Thursday that Cummings and Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) would jointly send a letter requesting the ethics review.

Chaffetz said Conway's remarks on Fox & Friends" were "clearly over the line" and "unacceptable," according to The Associated Press.

The wild and wooly West Wing of the Squirrel-Hair era knows how to kick up a dust storm.