U.S. President Donald Trump reacts, as he attends a ceremony held to dedicate a 4-mile stretch of road from West Palm Beach Airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate. (REUTERS)
Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell says President Donald Trump’s shady $1.7b fund proposal is so obviously corrupt that voters should demand a new word for Trump-brand political sleaze.
“I keep sitting here being like, is there a different word that means more than corruption at this point?” Longwell demanded of Bulwark editor Jonathan V. Last.
Trump is now commanding the creation of a new taxpayer-funded fund to dole out money to friends and allies, but with minimal oversight.
“Under the terms of the potential [IRS] settlement agreement, President Trump would have the authority to remove members of the commission running the fund without cause ... and the Commission would be under no obligation to disclose its procedures or decision-making process for awarding more than a billion dollars,” Last recited, quoting a description of Trump’s proposal.
It gets worse, said Last, because the process for awarding money and the identities of the recipients could be kept private, sources said.
So, Trump gets power over the commissioners choosing who gets cash, nobody gets to see whether or not the recipients deserve the payout and the public may not even get to know who got the payout. Additionally, Trump wants the fund dissolved after it can no longer serves his purpose shortly before his term ends, said Last, “because it would be important for this fund not to exist when a different president could hand things out.”
“He's starting the slush fund that is specifically so he can give out money to the January 6th perpetrators,” said Longwell, after taking a breath. “By the way, I don't know if you've been following the trajectory of these January 6th fine people, many of whom have been picked up for subsequent crimes, many of them sex crimes against children. Because as you can imagine, people who are trying to overturn our election are not very fine people.”
“… [I]t's not just that prices are going up for all Americans, while they fraudulently steal tax dollars for their own pet stuff to bribe their friends or give out,” Longwell added. “… This is about- The Trump Organization.”
Longwell pointed out that nothing stops Trump’s kids from directly manipulating and tweaking payouts to better serve the family organization.
“This will absolutely find a way into the family's pockets,” said Longwell.
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