DC insider: Dems can beat Trump if they do one thing differently

Democrats can use President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund to politically destroy the president and his allies, argued a conservative columnist — if they can work hard to deserve it.

“For starters: House Democrats ought to be gearing up for two solid years of investigations,” The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last argued on Wednesday. “One should be about the Epstein files. One should be about the Iran war. And one should be about the Slush Fund from Hell.”

He added, “What should the Democratic committee looking into the Slush Fund from Hell do? There are lots of questions to ask, but I want to focus on the big ones: Demand the identities of the five “commissioners” in charge of awarding public moneys. Demand the list of applicants petitioning for money. Demand the list of payees and payouts.”

Even though Trump will try to stonewall the investigations, Last argued that Democrats can use the very stonewalling as a political ace: “Let Trump’s public position be “‘ don’t have to tell you the names of the people who get your money. Or even the names of the people deciding who gets your money.’”

Last added, “Then start asking questions: Is Ghislaine Maxwell one of the commissioners? Is Miriam Adelson? Is Jared? If Trump won’t provide the names of the commissioners deciding who gets the money, then Democrats should feel free to convince the public that the commissioners must be some of the worst people in the world.”

Because it will be logistically difficult to prevent leaks about who gets money from the fund, Last predicted that Democrats — if they are savvy — can use the issue to hound Trump and his supporters at every turn.

“Set up a tip line,” Last wrote. “Get people to inform. And then start deposing anyone suspected of getting payouts. Make it the new blacklist. Go full McCarthy. Tell the public that if these people had nothing to hide, then they wouldn’t be desperate to keep their identities and their stories secret.”

He added, “Any time any Trump-adjacent figure testifies under oath, anywhere in Congress, ask if they applied for money from the Hell Fund. Make it the first question they have to answer after giving their name.”

Last also predicted that Trump will try to use the fund to bribe election officials to help Republicans win contests they otherwise lost.

“The only way to defend against this possibility is to serve notice that while Trump might be shielded from accountability for giving out the money, anyone who takes the money is wide open,” Last wrote. “Turn this fund into the bogeyman. Freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Make it so that anyone who even thinks about taking Trump’s dirty money has to worry about a years-long campaign to unmask them, at which point there will be questions about what they did to earn it.”

He concluded, “That won’t stop grifters and apparatchiks from getting paid. But it might give people looking to do things for Trump second thoughts. Because maybe that scenario up there isn’t so kosher after all. We want every would-be bribe taker to ask themselves, Do I want to be the guy testing the idea that this shit is legal?”

Last is not alone among conservatives denouncing the fund. Initially intended to be $10 billion, Trump sued the IRS claiming it violated his rights when a contractor leaked his tax returns in 2018. The tax returns, which showed Trump paid virtually nothing in taxes for years and had multiple undisclosed business failures, proved politically embarrassing to the president, but there is no precedent for anyone receiving more than an apology when the IRS accidentally leaks their returns.

Further adding to the controversy, Trump’s own Justice Department was assigned to defend the IRS, meaning that the president simultaneously was suing one of his own agencies and controlling the other agency meant to defend the interests of the IRS and taxpayers. When a judge ordered the entire arrangement to be reviewed by legal experts for potential illegality, Trump rushed to settle for $1.776 billion.

Many House Republicans are concerned about Trump’s actions hurting their party.

"Of course, I have concerns; it's very strange and unprecedented, it's very concerning," Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican who turned independent after his district was targeted by gerrymandering, said in a statement.

"I don’t know why anyone is receiving any money from this fund," the congressman added. "That's not the way we typically adjudicate claims... and certainly, I would think that, you know, those wouldn't be people that would be at the top of the list, even if there were a basis for such a payout. So, I'm still learning about it. It's a very unusual arrangement. I think that there does need to be congressional oversight into exactly how this came about, and what exactly is going to be the criteria for any distributions.

Similarly Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, told CNN on Wednesday that he doubts whether the fund is trustworthy, echoing Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying he is “not a fan” of the fund.

"I will tell you, my reaction was, this doesn't pass the smell test," Curtis told CNN’s Dana Bash. "Now, that said, I'm willing to learn more about it and its intent, but I suspect you might find this might be one area where you might find a lot of bipartisan questioning of whether or not this is a good idea."

Similarly Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, said that he wants to “kill” the fund, arguing that it "doesn’t bode well for Trump’s $1.7 billion fund for convicted crooks and rioters."

"We're gonna try and kill it," Fitzpatrick said regarding the news. "We're considering legislative options. We're gonna write a letter to the [attorney general] to start, but we're considering a legislative option. We're trying to unpack exactly what the legal machinations are, but you can't do that."