26 Comments
User's avatar
Joann's avatar

Sorry but it HAS to be MORE than 'you can't keep what you stole'. They'll take the chance.

People MUST starting doing jail time for these crimes. Period.

Skware2's avatar

I'm thinking we email a copy of this article to our reps each week with the email title - WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK! Thanks for the info, as usual great stuff.

Charlotte Andrews-Arnold's avatar

As the day approaches, the price of a pardon increases. What number does Todd Blanche imagine he'll have demanded of him? Say the sum total of every legal bill Trump has ever received? Should've asked THAT in the hearing!

Josh Ehrnwald's avatar

Amanda Carpenter: "Civil asset recovery operates completely outside the executive branch’s pardon authority, which means it can serve as a critical counterweight to Trump’s broad and brazen use of clemency (such as his January 6th pardon spree on Day One of his second term)."

...Or, at least until the John Roberts SCOTUS totally reverts this, LOL.

::jumps off skyscraper in despair::

Carol S.'s avatar

Back January 2016, Trump said: "My whole life I've been greedy, greedy, greedy. I've grabbed all the money I could get." Which was one of the rare times he's been honest. When he added "Now I'm going to be greedy for the United States," he was being less honest. He was always going to put his own interest first. Anyone who thought otherwise was a self-deluding fool.

At the same time, the idea of being "greedy for the United States" sums up the predatory approach to foreign policy that we're now seeing.

DBP's avatar

"Greedy for the United States" in the same sense as a child is greedy for ice cream.

Tai's avatar

Welcome home, Amanda (even it’s an occasional thing)! Thanks for always being clear-eyed about the dangers ahead but also offer concrete steps to fight back.

Linda Oliver's avatar

Years ago, when he was first campaigning, Trump said, “nobody knows the system like me”, leading people to infer that he would thus reform it for the benefit of the American people. He since discovered that “nobody cared” (no Republicans) when he used that knowledge to game the system for his own personal benefit. It’s good to know that that system can still punish him and his cronies for that perversion of its intent and return the grift to the American coffers they cheated. We can close the trough and put teeth back 8n the Emoluments Clause.

Alondra's avatar

This is music to my eyes. A plan for justice!

Karen Williams's avatar

I hope this puts the fear of God into those who have just begun to participate in the grift, and they scatter like rats on a sinking ship. Please please please, Democrats, get the underlying investigation in place now.

Josh Ehrnwald's avatar

"Please please please, Democrats, get the underlying investigation in place now."

Narrator Ron Howard:

"...They won't."

Garvin's avatar

Now, of course, we need to be sure that the Republicans in Congress do not see these claw-back reports and come up with a law that keeps the public from acting on them. Trump's corruption runs wide and long, so we can't assume he and his cronies are not already looking for the workarounds that allow them to keep what they have stolen.

Don Gates's avatar

Sounds great. But it's hard to see this country, with this sclerotic system, holding any rich and powerful people to account. I honestly can't even imagine it.

Jim Johnson's avatar

This is great information and something I hadn't considered. It's refreshing to hear about what Hungary is doing already, but Trump's grifting is so much bigger and will be tough to undo given our legal system and the current makeup and rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. Standing of private citizens to bring a civil action would be a problem, and even a specially-created independent agency would be subject to the whims of a future Congress and the Supreme Court.

Litigation would take decades, but that doesn't mean it should not be pursued. Even after Trump is gone from this earth, the beneficiaries, victims and public treasury still will be here. And if nothing else, forfeiture and disgorgement actions would memorialize Trump's legacy as the biggest grifter the world has ever seen.

Craig Hohm's avatar

From your lips to the ears of the gods

David Bonn's avatar

Keep this up.

Can we add a law that requires people to pay triple damages (3x what they made) from insider trading?

Sky Schelle's avatar

In theory, I love this concept. In reality, it appears to be based on civil rules that the Supreme Court will create a reason to overlook.