Of Slush Funds and Suckups
The details of Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund get more outrageous by the day. Not that Republicans mind.
Another month of iced-over war in Iran, another thirty-day extension of America’s sanctions waiver on Russian oil to try to take some of the pressure off the world’s Strait-of-Hormuz energy shock. We’re with Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jeanne Shaheen on this one: “Every additional dollar the Kremlin earns from this license helps [Vladimir] Putin finance his illegal war against Ukraine and kill innocent Ukrainians.” Happy Wednesday.
Command Post with Mark Hertling and Ben Parker will be live on Substack and YouTube at 10:30 a.m. EDT today to talk about the latest news out of Iran and another withdrawal of American forces from Europe.
Of Slush Funds
by Andrew Egger
Someday I’ll need to take a break from writing about Donald Trump’s outrageous “anti-weaponization fund”—Lord knows there are plenty of other outrages clamoring for our attention. But there’s no helping it for now: The thing just keeps getting more ridiculous day after day.
The big news in this department was the remarkable “supplement” to the settlement agreement that the Justice Department quietly revealed yesterday: a one-page document stating that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from prosecuting tax claims against anyone in the Trump family or Trump’s businesses.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche gave no explanation for this utterly shameless attempt to place the president and his associates permanently above the law. And why would he have? We don’t need explanations for what is obvious on its face: Blanche is auditioning for the permanent AG job by giving Trump constant reassurances he’ll run the Justice Department exactly like he used to run Trump’s criminal defense teams: with an eye to protecting the boss above all else. At long last, Trump has the attorney general he’s been craving ever since Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation all those years ago: a guy who knows his proper throne-sniffing place.
But somehow even this development didn’t get my blood boiling as much as another, objectively smaller development yesterday: Vice President JD Vance’s turn in the White House Briefing Room defending the settlement fund in questions from reporters. All these guys are rotten, but there’s something about Vance’s shtick of couching his own utterly cynical amorality in a posture of faux-earnest aw-shucks folksy reasonableness that bothers me even more than the no-pretense in-your-face corruption.
You’d never see Trump, for instance, managing to formulate this sort of soullessly galaxy-brained thought about the J6ers: “One of the interesting things about the American media is there is a fascination with prisoner rights. . . . You know who never gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to disproportionate sentencing? People who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protest.”
Incredibly, Vance repeatedly declined to rule out the possibility of giving “anti-weaponization” money to people convicted of violent attacks on Capitol Police.
“You previously told me that anyone who assaulted a police officer on January 6th should go to prison,” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked the vice president. “So why not rule out giving them taxpayer-funded money?”
“What I said,” Vance replied, “is we’re going to look at everything case by case. . . . There are people who, I don’t know their individual circumstances, and I don’t rule things out categorically when I know nothing about a person’s individual circumstances.”
“We do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers—that doesn’t mean that we’re going to completely ignore some of the claims they’re going to make,” Vance said at another point. “We’re going to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis.”
This posture is so tiresome. Here is something we know categorically about the “individual circumstances” of those who assaulted police officers on January 6th: They all assaulted police officers on January 6th. Vance, an educated human being with a sharp mind capable of abstract thought, is not actually having genus–species difficulties here. Rather, he is compelled to squirm and gyrate like this because he doesn’t want to say the obvious actual reason why Trump doesn’t want him to rule out money for violent rioters. This has nothing to do with invented or imagined ameliorating circumstances. Trump, as he has made clear all along, simply thinks attacking police on his behalf is behavior that should be rewarded, not punished.
This was clear on the day of January 6th itself, when Trump had to be dragooned by those around him into denouncing the violence at all—which he finally did in the most laughably perfunctory way imaginable. As the dust settled on the wreckage of the riot, Trump was openly exultant: “Go home with love & in peace,” he tweeted that night. “Remember this day forever!” It was clear again last year when Trump pardoned every January 6th criminal—the violent included—on his first day back in office. It would have been easy for the president simply to pardon everyone who stormed the Capitol nonviolently (lol) on his behalf.
He pardoned them all because he approved of what all of them had done. Now he plans to pay them with your money, too. And the vice president has the temerity to wag an admonishing finger at you for caring.
Of Suckups
by William Kristol
Obsequiousness, it turns out, is a competitive sport.
On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham said “there is no room” in the Republican party to oppose Donald Trump. “This is the party of Donald Trump.”
That’s a pretty good entry in the sycophancy sweepstakes. So what do you do if you’re Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.)? You’re a wealthy business executive serving your first term in the House. You’re proud that you graduated with a degree in government—magna cum laude—from Harvard, where you were also the chair of the undergraduate council student affairs committee. You went on to work at McKinsey, and then on to Harvard Business School, where you were named a Baker Scholar for academic achievement. You succeeded in the casino business. Now you’ve got yourself into Congress, and you have an eye on higher office. You’ve tried to distinguish yourself in your first term by your rampant anti-Muslim bigotry. But will that be enough?
So after the defeat two weeks ago of non-Trump-compliant state representatives in Indiana, and of pro-impeachment Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, and pro–releasing the Epstein files Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky, what’s there to do but to try not only to echo but to surpass Sen. Graham? So Fine tweeted, “This is @realDonaldTrump’s Republican Party. The rest of us get the privilege of living in it.”
Edward Feser, a conservative Catholic philosophy professor at Pasadena City College, commented on Fine’s remark by way of a quotation from Book V of Aristotle’s Politics:
A tyrant . . . [favors] those who keep him company in an obsequious spirit, which is the function of flattery. This makes tyranny favor the baser sort, in the sense that a tyrant loves to be flattered, and no man of free spirit will oblige him. Respectable men . . . refrain from flattery.
Fine had no hesitation in choosing flattery over respectability. And who can say, in the age of Trump and the party of Trump, that his choice was a foolish one?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has always thought of himself as a respectable man. He never went so far as to be a profile in courage—never standing up to Trump on any important matter, and as Cornyn said over and over again, voting with Trump 99 percent of the time. In the last year, desperate to keep his seat, he too tried to resort to flattery, though he could never quite embrace sycophancy as enthusiastically as some of his colleagues. In any case, it wasn’t enough. Yesterday, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Cornyn, which presumably dooms Cornyn in next week’s Senate primary runoff.
Cornyn’s colleague, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), also an establishment type who would like to think of himself as a Respectable Republican™, said of Trump’s tossing Cornyn overboard, “It saddened me. I don’t know what you can complain about on John Cornyn . . . And I don’t know anything that he’s done that’s offensive in a significant way to the president.”
But being inoffensive à la Cornyn wasn’t enough for Trump. And I’d add that being saddened by Trump, à la Moran—but doing nothing to oppose or stop him—isn’t enough to allow you to claim to deserve respect.
For if I can extend Aristotle’s thought (and if he’ll forgive me the presumption), to be respectable is not simply to refuse to engage in flattery. It’s also to also refrain from being an accomplice to or enabler of flattery. Even if you don’t abase yourself, you are empowering others who do. So shed no tears for Cornyn, or Cassidy, or all the other Respectable Republicans™ who have gone along with Trump and with their colleagues who have bowed before Trump.
Today’s Republican party is no party for respectable men. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and his deputy Gabriel Sterling, who courageously and honorably stood up to Trump in 2020, were crushed in GOP primaries yesterday.
Four years ago, in her opening remarks at the House January 6th Committee hearings, Liz Cheney warned: “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
For now, Donald Trump is still here, and Republican dishonor is greater than ever.
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Empire Putin Tried to Rebuild Is Coming Apart… Russia’s “little brothers” are growing up, argues CATHY YOUNG.
How to Fix America’s Geriatric Politician Problem… Sure, some people can work well into old age. But we still need age limits on candidates for office, writes JILL LAWRENCE.
Trump Is Looting Us in Broad Daylight… On the flagship pod, MARTHA RADDATZ, JVL, and SARAH join TIM MILLER to talk about Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion taxpayer slush fund.
Trump’s Slush Fund Isn’t Just Corrupt—It’s a Crime… ANDREW WEISSMANN joins SARAH LONGWELL on The Illegal News to discuss the outright fraud that is the slush fund, and the release of his new book, Liar’s Kingdom.
Quick Hits
BAD TO WORSE TO WORSE TO WORSE TO . . . : Believe it or not, we still haven’t managed to tell you about every outrageous development we got yesterday in the Trump slush-fund affair. In addition to everything Andrew laid out above, the New York Times also reported that career lawyers at the IRS were laying the groundwork to fight Trump’s suit—before their Trump-mook bosses decided to throw in the towel and settle instead:
I.R.S. officials prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining what they saw as flaws in Mr. Trump’s suit and advising the Justice Department to move to dismiss it, according to two people familiar with the memo. That memo was provided to Treasury officials in April, and it is unclear if they passed it along to its intended recipients at the Justice Department, according to the people, who spoke anonymously to discuss internal government deliberations.
No lawyers from the Justice Department ever appeared in court to respond to the suit or disputed any of Mr. Trump’s claims, which demanded at least $10 billion from the I.R.S. for not doing enough to prevent the leak of his tax information. . . . The existence of the internal memo, which has not been previously reported, shows that the Trump administration disregarded readily available defenses to a lawsuit filed by the president against an agency he controls.
NEWSOM A NO ON IMPEACHMENT: Andrew and Bill may have reached the conclusion that impeachment for Donald Trump is not only acceptable but a governing imperative for Democrats. But actual elected Democrats aren’t quite there yet—at least not all of them.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently sidestepped the possibility when asked if Trump deserved impeachment for launching what Jeffries called a “reckless” war in Iran. Senate Democratic leadership has been similarly mute, even as some of the party’s members embrace impeachment. On Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was asked about impeachment during a quick press briefing following a speech he gave at the Center for American Progress’ Ideas conference. To his credit, he didn’t evade an answer:
I fear that if you don’t have the Senate, what are you producing except a lot of headlines and fundraising appeals? To the extent, accountability comes in many different forms. But we’ve been there, done that, on multiple occasions. I know the base, I know a lot of people feel very strongly about that, but if there is an agenda that I would be promoting that wouldn’t be on the top of the agenda. The broader issue, the direct issue, around the corruption, the graft, and the grift has to be addressed immediately and put to an end. That to me would be the top priority going in at the same time we design our version of Project 2029.
Newsom has his eyes set on running for president in 2028—though he scurried away ever so playfully when I pressed him on that. So his reluctance to embrace the bluntest instrument for going after Trump suggests that there isn’t really that big a yearning for impeachment coming from the party’s base—or at least, that’s Newsom’s judgment. And yet, a few more weeks of the president setting up slush funds for J6ers and eight-figure insider trading could change the internal party politics here.
Newsom didn’t hold back on those fronts, warning that Trump “will pardon the vast majority of the people in the White House, in the administration, members of the cabinet, his family.” But, he stressed, “being anti-Trump is not a governing strategy.”
—Sam Stein
PEOPLE AGAINST ROBOTS: Anti-AI sentiment is turning into one of the most powerful forces in politics,1 and politicians’ eagerness to channel it is growing, too. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who is running for South Carolina governor in a crowded Republican field, announced this week that she would back a one-year data center moratorium in the state, followed by a new regulatory regime requiring data centers to supply their own electricity rather than rely on local grids, which would potentially drive up residents’ utility prices.
“The rules are simple,” Mace said in a statement. “Data centers pay their own way or they do not come here.”
It’s a suggestion that echoes similar pitches made recently on both sides of the aisle. Farther south, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill this month establishing similar utility-infrastructure requirements on data centers. Meanwhile, Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders continue to champion a more maximalist policy: a national moratorium on new data-center construction “until strong national safeguards are in place.”
Cheap Shots
Not to mention the hottest new trend in booing graduation speakers who mention it!
Sent to US Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska this a.m.:
"D.O.J. Hands Trump, His Family and Businesses Immunity From Tax Investigations" - NYT Headline
Based on your record, I have absolutely no doubt that you will vote to confirm Trump's next nominee for Attorney General, a nominee who will endorse this immunity along with the oh-so-patriotic $1.776 billion dollar slush fund. Your moral bankruptcy is so complete that the impulse to ask you to not support such a nominee, and to block the immunity and the slush fund, is obviously ridiculous and exercise of that impulse would just be pissing into the wind. Trump's actions are an obvious middle finger to all your constituents who believe in the ideals that are the bedrock of constitutional and democratic governance. Your enabling of all this has earned you a middle finger from me.
Yesterday I saw Michael Fanone on Deadline White House. What he said broke my heart. He’s getting more death threats from crazed MAGAts who are now convinced Trump will pardon and pay them for their murder. This is deeply disturbing and so very sad.