The slush fund for insurrectionists is worse than you think
In addition to giving our taxpayer money to convicted child molesters, the IRS has quietly agreed to let Trump and his entire family off the hook for all past and future tax theft.
It’s been five years since a mob of MAGA thugs smeared poop on the walls inside the U.S. Capitol and murdered a police officer because Trump told them to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden. Roughly 1,500 of those people were charged with federal crimes under Biden, and Trump pardoned nearly all of them or commuted their sentences when he returned to office last year. Dozens of those rioters went on to commit new crimes, including child sexual abuse, reckless homicide by drunk driving, strangulation, burglary, and possession of child pornography. And now $1.8 billion of our taxpayer money is being funneled into a “slush fund” to pay these people for their (past and future) loyalty to Trump—without Congress having approved a dime of it.
One insurrectionist who was recently convicted of child sexual assault, a Florida handyman named Andrew Paul Johnson, appeared to know this money was coming. According to a police report from February, he tried to bribe one of his young victims into silence with the millions he expected to receive as restitution for his Jan. 6 prosecution. “Andrew also told [child] that since he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a ‘jan 6’er,’” the report reads. “Andrew did tell [child] that he would be putting him in his ‘will’ to take any money he had left over.”
The police must have assumed that Johnson was lying about the money coming from Trump just to keep the kid quiet. But no—the molester’s prediction has come to pass! Because Trump has now actually reached a “settlement” with his own DOJ and IRS—just a transfer of taxpayer money to himself, really—to create a $1.776 billion slush fund for his allies that he believes were wrongly targeted by Biden’s DOJ. (Note the 1776 number they came up with for the slush fund, referencing the Revolutionary War.) Trump had originally sued the IRS for $10 billion over his leaked tax returns, and this was part of the deal his own agencies came up with for him to drop that lawsuit: essentially, reparations for white people.
When confronted over whether this money could go to literal child molesters at a Senate hearing today, Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to say no or even acknowledge that such men exist. And when Sen. Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced an amendment to an unrelated bill that would block this money from going to “convicted child predators,” Republicans killed it.
Meanwhile, the IRS has also quietly agreed to drop all current and future claims against Trump, his family, and his companies for unpaid taxes, which feels just as newsworthy as anything else about the slush fund. The Trumps are now just eternally shielded from any kind of financial scrutiny, as they profit off of Donald’s second term through brazen corruption, tax evasion, and insider trading. “In a sweeping one-page addendum to Monday’s settlement agreement…Blanche agreed that the U.S. is ‘FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims,’ including ‘monetary relief,’ that ‘have been or could have been’ asserted by the IRS against Trump, his family or his businesses,” per NBC News.
The slush fund and immunity deal are so nakedly corrupt that even Republicans are queasy about it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he’s “not a fan” of it, and his caucus already appears to be looking for a way out of having to deal with it (along with $1 billion ballroom) ahead of a midterm election they are expected to lose, badly. “I’ve got more questions than I’ve heard answers for, and … I didn’t hear anything that gave me certainty in terms of how this all comes together,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), after attending the hearing with Blanche. “Can the president just say $1.87 billion? … I don’t know enough about it to feel comfortable.”
House Democrats, meanwhile, appear to have located their spines and are planning use a discharge petition to force Republicans to take a vote on whether to re-assert Congress’ power of the purse and block this unhinged slush fund. “We need to put Republicans on the spot as to whether or not they are going to endorse this rank corruption, or whether they are going to stand up for basic constitutional values,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told The New Republic.
At this point, Trump is just playing in our faces. Reaching a deal with your own government to use it like a piggy bank and move billions of taxpayer dollars to the people who smeared literal shit on the Capitol walls is so absurd that a TV writers’ room would reject it. Make every Republican take a vote on whether they like that this is happening in their names.
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I'd like to see one of those national newsmagazine programs do a follow up on what those Jan6 folks did with their "vindication", but that would require a press that isn't compromised.