The corporate media is brimming with headlines after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was rushed to Capitol Hill to claim that the Trump administration will not move forward with a terrorist slush fund—$1.8 billion for January 6th insurrectionists and others.
“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said to the House Appropriations Committee. But there are few details of how this will play out. And unlike the announcement of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Blanche refused to put it in writing, nor does its demise appear on the DOJ website.
“You started it; you established it in writing, so it just makes sense to rescind it in writing,” New York Democratic Rep.Grace Meng told Blanche.
“I’m not committing to put anything in writing,” Blanche replied.
Are we really supposed to believe these people?
On top of that, Blanche confirmed that the part of the “settlement” in which Trump and his family get immunity from tax audits for dropping the $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, is staying. Let me remind you that none of the others among many wealthy people whose whose returns were leaked when Trump’s were leaked by an IRS contractor—during Trump’s first administration—got anything. Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin sued the IRS and settled—for an apology, that’s it.
“Nothing has changed with that,” Blanche sad at the hearing regarding the Trump family’s immunity from audits for the rest of their lives, which is insane. President’s are routinely audited each year by the IRS. Trump is estimated to own $100 million under an ongoing audit. Now it disappears, even as his administration claims they’re not paying out the $1.8 billion to the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol and bludgeoned police officers.
It makes you wonder if that had been the plan all along. But I doubt it. Trump wanted this slush fund to create his own armed militia, looking toward the elections. And he’s going to have to find another way to do it. Don’t think he won’t try.
Still, it’s true that those of us opposed to the authoritarian regime had a big win, helping to raise the temperature enough on Trump’s terrorist slush fund to the point at which Republicans in the Senate came to see it as a liability.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he went to Trump and “made clear” that the $72 billion budget reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through 2029 wasn’t going to pass unless Trump dropped the slush fund. Getting the ICE funding, even though ICE has lots of money from the big, bad bill, has been a priority, and keeping the agency shut down was hurting the regime’s efforts.
And when unnamed sources in the White House fed the media the story that Trump was dropping the slush fund, it wasn’t enough for Republicans in the Senate, knowing Democrats would still have impact in forcing the issue. So Blanche was hauled up to the House to say it publicly—even though he wouldn’t put it in writing—while Trump still hasn’t addressed it.
The Democrats executed a great strategy on the ICE funding bill. They blocked funding, forcing the GOP to try to pass the funding bill under budget reconciliation, a process that would only require 51 votes. And after Trump demanded his billion-dollar ballroom be added into the bill, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Trump’s ballroom couldn’t be added. There weren’t enough votes for the ballroom anyway.
Democrats had planned to introduce amendments on the ballroom, but when that was dropped, they switched to the slush fund. It caused the GOP to go home for the holiday without taking the ICE funding vote, fearful of the amendments.
After two rulings by judges that dealt blows to the fund late last week, and after the blowback from the GOP, the White House began to cave. But Chuck Schumer said Democrats will still add amendments to the ICE funding bill. And they’re right to do so.
Those amendments need to say that the slush fund can never be brought back in any way, shape, or form. We can’t trust the word of this administration.
The New York Times reported before Blanche went to the hill that “some administration officials privately expressed relief” at the judicial rulings but then added, “As with all things involving Mr. Trump, he could still decide to reverse course, especially as he tracks media coverage of his decision.”
That’s an indication that Trump won’t let it be.
The Florida judge who reopened the lawsuit against the IRS that Trump claimed to have dropped, creating the “settlement” for the slush fund, will keep this in the news for a while as she seeks to determine if the administration engaged in “fraud.”
And the decision to keep the part of the deal that prevents Trump and his family from being audited is another massive disaster for the GOP heading into the midterms. Even if the courts stop it, Democrats will be able to use this against the GOP, showing that Trump is executing his power to protect himself and enrich himself, while everyday Americans are suffering.