The scale of corruption in this administration is staggering. Most of us know that. But there are some instances that even for the most corrupt administration in history - still boggle the mind.
Of course, there is Trump’s claim for $10 billion to the IRS for releasing his tax returns. This claim will be adjudicated by the DOJ (which has basically sworn fealty to Trump instead of the American people) and the IRS, which is run by Secretary of the Treasury and incredible Trump suck-up Scott Bessent (Bessent also said recently that “sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate”🤦🏻♂️).
Then there is his claim for $230 million from the DOJ as compensation for investigating his behavior after he left office (and took classified documents with him to Mar-A-Lago). This will be handled by Pam Bondi and the same DOJ that has sowrn fealty to Trump.
There’s more. Commenter TBone Dinosaur mentioned this video from Scott McFarlane in a recent comment (way to go TBone 👏🏻):
Let’s remember that the family of Ashli Babbit, who stormed the Capitol and was breaking through an interior window into the House Speaker’s Lobby when she was warned and then shot by a Capitol Police Officer protecting elected officials, has received approximately $5 million in a settlement with the government. That’s right - the government paid her family money because Babbit violently broke into the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Yesterday, we learned that Michael Flynn, who voluntarily pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI (and was subsequently pardoned by Trump), received $1.2 million in a settlement with our government.
Recently, Live Nation (the parent of Ticketmaster) settled its antitrust lawsuit with the government. Anyone who has bought concert tickets through Ticketmaster knows they are being gouged (which a Live Nation exec admitted to earlier this year), but as a monopoly, Ticketmaster had us all by the cajónes. Did this have any connection to the fact the Live Nation contributed $500,000 to the Trump 2.0 inauguration Committee? Who can say?
Gotta hand it to Trump - he takes care of his peeps. And pay to play is also alive and well.
I mean, recently fired Corey Lewandowski, Kristi Noem’s constant companion, boasted he could do whatever he wanted at DHS because Trump would pardon him if necessary.
Lastly, and un-f*^king-believably, Trump yesterday transferred over $1 billion to his “Board of Peace”, which was not authorized by Congress and is clearly illegal. These are taxpayer funds previously earmarked for international disaster assistance, peacekeeping operations, and international organizations and programs. Holy Highway Robbery Batman!
One of the conundrums for Democrats is what issues to focus on that will “break through” to voters who don’t pay close attention to politics (which from my personal experience is as high as 80-90% of voters).
Seems to me that pay-to-play for pardons, and using government funds to take care of himself and his lawless supporters might just be two of those issues.
