The Mother of All Grifts
Much as I didn’t want to write about Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund deal, an agreement he got for “dropping” his lawsuit against himself for $10 billion dollars for which he was the deciding arbiter, it was too much to ignore. Sort of like getting hit in the face with a pie and walking around for weeks without washing it off or mentioning it.
This is money that Trump can now give to insurrectionists, and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys white supremacist groups, and any of his corrupt friends he’s pardoned. It’s not even arguably the biggest grift in U.S. history. There's no "arguable" about it. A grift so brazenly massive, openly corrupt, blatantly shameless, and manifestly illegal that people who don’t even know the word “grift” would say, “Oh, my god, that is overwhelming grift!!!” It’s so corrupt that it makes the Teapot Dome Scandal look like a miniature cup at a little girl’s playtime tea party. (My friend Myles Berkowitz called to give me a different Teapot Dome simile, but I still want to give him credit.)
To put this in full context, Trump not only pardoned 1,600 insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the U.S. government, including the most violent paramilitary rioters, attacked police and built a hangman's noose for the U.S. vice president, but he’s now able to pay them taxpayer money for their criminal actions for which they were convicted or pled guilty. What could go wrong with that?!!
And then it got even worse – that’s when details were released that the DOJ order includes the additional condition that the Internal Revenue Service was barred from pursuing prior tax claims against Trump, his family or his businesses.
Forever.
Or to quote from the Department of Justice (sic) order – original CAPS included –
"The United States RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS, and FOREVER DISCHARGES each of the plaintiffs from and is hereby FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of action, appeals, or requests for any relief" against Trump or related parties.”
To be clear, this doesn't give Trump carte blanche (or considering his former lawyer, now Acting Attorney General who signed off on the agreement, carte Blanche) to cheat on his income taxes forever. (Sorry, “FOREVER.”) Just that he or his family or their businesses are let off from any tax fraud he might have committed ("might have" being the quaint, polite phrase) before the signed date of the agreement, May 18. As a result, there can be no future audits of them over anything in their past -- forever. Some experts have said that this amounts to a $100 million savings for Trump. And a loss to U.S. taxpayers.
And to make it even worse (and yes, that’s possible), the order was signed by the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal lawyer. (I was going to say “formerly,” but not long ago Blanche said that he still considered himself Trump’s lawyer.)
Senator Ron Wyden put it succinctly. He called Trump's deal with himself, "a stunning act of corruption" and that if he follows through "it will be the most brazen theft and abuse of taxpayer dollars by any president in American history".
Trump and his circle are at the point where they don’t even feel the need to hide their grift and corruption. They even gave the amount a total designed to spit in taxpayers’ faces. The actual money amount of the slush fund isn’t exactly $1.8 billion. That’s rounded up. Some reports have called it $1.7 billion, since that used the first two digits. But that’s too low. No, in order to make this theft seem laughingly patriotic, the agreement was for $1.776 billion.
This isn’t about “government weaponization.” There wasn’t wrongful prosecution by the Biden Administration. The people Trump pardoned, as noted, were either convicted in court by juries or pled guilty. They were all given full defenses. No case was thrown out of court. In fact, Trump’s DOJ brought in Special Counsel John Durham to investigate if there had been political "weaponization" during the Obama or Biden administrations – and he found zero cases of illegal prosecutions! Furthermore, it must be remembered that although Trump has pardoned all these people who now can apply for being paid – the acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt!
On the other hand, if Trump and his cronies really do want to find any political weaponization, they have to look, instead, at his own DOJ which has had cases thrown out of court against Letitia James and James Comey (who they’ve indicted a second time for taking a photo of seashells), and have themselves dropped investigations against the six Democratic members of Congress who had made a video telling members of the military they were required under military law to not obey illegal orders, which Trump said he thought was treasonous, a crime for which the penalty is death.
But here’s the thing. Or two things, actually.
The first is that this isn’t about Trump. We know who he is. And the public has figured it out, too, giving him a 34% approval. This massive, egregious, blatant grift is about the MAGOPs in Congress who are largely silent about it and enabling the whole thing. And even if for some reason it gets blocked, it won’t be because the MAGOPs in Congress all rose up as one to voice their outrage. It would be because all Democrats did, a handful of MAGOPs, and the courts. But the MAGOP, they have enabled Trump and his circle and given him the free rein and brazenness to commit this outlandish grift.
And the second thing is that the public will get this. It’s near-impossible not to. A lot of grift gets overlooked because it's either hard to describe or because people often find it "politics as usual." But this is a on a different level. When there are cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. And cuts to rural hospitals. And skyrocketing gas prices. And tariffs that have caused prices to soar. And billions spent on a war Trump started that no one wants. And people are struggling, having to decide whether to buy food or gas. And then, the public sees Trump find $1.8 billion for himself to give to the 1,600 insurrectionists that the American public literally saw attack the U.S. Capitol on live television. Not to mention all Trump’s other allies he’s pardoned for their crimes. This is not difficult for people to understand – and be furious about.
And as I’ve noted, my theory is that when someone has a high approval, the public is willing to forgive a transgression because they like the person and see it as an exception. But when someone has a low approval, any transgression is seen as a confirmation of why they don’t like the person.
Trump’s approval is 34%.
As always, Trump will do things that are galling, awful, pathetic, infuriating and harmful. But they all reverberate back on him, as well. And put a lid on that low approval and keep pushing it lower. And it all reverberates back on his MAGOP party, as well.
But not to worry. This is Trump. I feel confident he has it in him to go even lower. Though he's set himself a big standard to beat.
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