There is a truism about bullies: if you don't stand up to them, they'll just keep going, pushing their victims even further. We are learning that day after day in Donald Trump's second term, as our Bully in Chief continues to reach new levels of corruption. Anyone paying attention would have seen this coming; in his first term, the Trump family business continued to run the Trump Hotel in Washington DC even as he was in the White House. According to Forbes magazine, over the four years of his first term his business made 3.75 million dollars from foreign dignitaries staying at the hotel, a flagrant violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution. No move was ever made by congress to limit or punish this obvious unconstitutional profiting by the president, even when the Democrats took the House and the Senate. I suppose the argument was that Trump was engaged in so much other corruption that this obvious attempt to line his own pockets had to be ignored.
Sadly and inevitably, Trump saw the lack of restraint by congress in his first term as free hand to go crazy in his second one. So this time his family business started a crypto coin company just before he took office that has made over a billion and a half dollars in just one year, with, once again, much of that money coming from foreign countries looking to win favor with him. Recently it was also discovered that his investment portfolio has made over 3600 trades in just the first three months of this year(!), with Trump publicly praising some companies just before his portfolio invested in them. His son Eric has countered this by saying that the investments are in a blind trust, but, as the New York Times recently pointed out, there is no proof that such a trust exists.
And then there's the president's slush fund. Back in his first term, Trump refused to release his tax returns. IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn started releasing them illegally, and was caught and sentenced to five years in jail. This year Trump sued the federal government for not doing enough to stop his returns from being released, asking for ten billion dollars in damages. Yes, he essentially was suing the same government that he himself ran, freely admitting that “I am supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”
Well, now we know the details of that settlement: in agreement for dropping the suit, Trump's former personal attorney (and now acting Attorney General) Todd Blanche will pick five people to distribute almost two billion dollars to compensate the president’s allies and others investigated by the Justice Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. When Blanche testified in congress about this slush fund, he refused to say whether some of that money would go to people who violently protested during the January 6th riot of 2020. Or to put it another way, the Trump administration wants to use US tax dollars to benefit people who beat law officers during a failed insurgency.
Another part of the settlement may also be just as jaw dropping: Trump and family are now exempt from any IRS audit into their business. This not only erases a previous tax fee that Trump owed to the amount of one hundred million dollars, but it clearly opens the door for Trump and his family to cheat as much as they want on their taxes in the future without any fear of punishment. Who knows how much this could cost as generation after generation of Trumps cheat and get away with it.
One good thing about all of this is that congressional Republicans may finally have found a level of corruption that makes even them balk. Yes, the same party that didn't impeach Trump after January 6th and shrugged off his starting a war with Iran without any kind of congressional input, may actually be standing up to Trump's imperial presidency desires. Last Thursday Blanche visited with congressional Republicans who vented their anger over the slush fund, understandably outraged at the prospect of giving money to violent protestors that some of those congress people actually had to flee from back in 2020.
While it may be a little too little and a little too late, it is good to see that the GOP, clearly knowing what a terrible message Trump's slush fund sends to the voters right before the mid terms, are actually standing up to him about something. In fact, they're so angry that have decided delay voting on an immigration crack down bill that Trump is pushing for. So it's possible that Trump will have to forego giving government money to violent protestors like he so clearly wants to.
With the Trump era drawing to a close soon, and Republicans already looking ahead to 2028, it's obvious that Trump is obsessed with his legacy, doing big things like starting a poorly thought out war with Iran, a country we've been in conflict with since 1979, and smaller things, like building his silly ball room. He's also using his office to make as much money as humanly possible for him and his family with even less restraint than he showed in his first term. The damage his corruption has done to the world, this country, and the office of the president, will probably takes years to set right.
No comments:
Post a Comment