President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to revive his controversial plan for federal payouts to people he says were “badly treated” by the Obama and Biden administrations, telling senators that he would “push hard” for legislation to fund the payments if they did not confirm his nominee for attorney general.
As near as I can make out — in a fit of pique, Trump is now declaring that if the Senate won’t confirm his nominee for AG, Todd Blanch, he’s going back to demanding that his weaponization slush fund be reinstated.
“It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account, vowing to pass an “Anti-Weaponization Bill” should his nomination of Todd Blanche for attorney general fail in the Senate.
Trump added that he would keep Blanche as acting attorney general and blasted two GOP senators — John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) — who have blocked the nomination from advancing over concerns about the fund.
It was not immediately clear what legislation the president was referencing, and the White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s post.
It’s nakedly obvious that Trump never intended to give up on the fund. He was just pretending to until Blanche was confirmed. Otherwise, the only thing he needed to do to get Blanche confirmed was to put in writing that there would be no fund.
Trump probably doesn’t read The New Republic, but if he did he might notice Michael Tomasky calling the slush fund “the leading charge in Trump’s next impeachment.”
The fund, you’ll recall, was the result of a settlement in a mind-bending legal proceeding in which Trump sued himself: That is, the president of the United States sued the Internal Revenue Service, seeking $10 billion for the (admittedly illegal) leak of some of his tax returns back in 2019. In May, Trump’s Justice Department, led at the time by Blanche as the acting attorney general, settled the suit between Trump the president and Trump’s IRS by establishing a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, whose moneys were to go to parties Trump deemed to have been wronged by the deep state—starting of course with Trump himself. It also included a shocking clause granting Trump, his family members, and his companies immunity from prosecution for any tax-related crimes they may have committed before the date of deal. …
…It’s hard to say how many articles of impeachment the Democratic House might come up with. Indeed, Raskin and his committee’s biggest challenge will be deciding which high crimes and misdemeanors not to pursue. There’ve been dozens, hundreds, and they just can’t plausibly bring an indictment of 100-plus counts. They’re going to have to keep it to some number that the public can digest and buy into.
But the slush fund and immunity grant sure look like count number one to me. Unless of course five members of the you-know-what decide it’s all legal. If that happens, the House Judiciary Committee might look at impeaching them, too.
In other news — U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is now on Trump’s shit list. You probably heard that the case against former Olympian David Hearn has been dismissed by Pirro. And Trump is not happy.
In an extraordinary motion filed Friday evening, the U.S. attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, said she was seeking to dismiss a felony charge against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of pulling up a piece of the pool’s lining two feet square.
In doing so, Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally of President Trump’s — directly contradicted the president’s repeated claim that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives. Instead, she said, “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”
Earlier this month, Ms. Pirro herself had echoed the president’s claims, calling a news conference to announce Mr. Hearn’s indictment on July 2. She said that she had “tremendous evidence” that Mr. Hearn had committed a felony, and noted that he faced up to 10 years in prison.
But on Friday, Ms. Pirro said that her prosecutors had been misled by the Interior Department, which had awarded a no-bid contract to a first-time government contractor to repair the iconic landmark.
Ms. Pirro said that the pool’s new blue coating had actually started to peel within two days of the project’s completion, and that the Interior Department kept that fact from prosecutors, telling them that “nearly all of the damage” was done by vandals.
Nearly everybody not in the Trump Administration knew good and well the damage wasn’t caused by vandals, but I’m glad to see Pirro catching up. Oddly, she somehow did get an indictment against David Hearn, which is unusual for Pirro. She’s been bombing out at getting indictments for months. Even so, at some point she must have realized she didn’t have a case, but somebody needs to check out how she got that indictment, Something stinks.
But, as I said, Trump is furious.
“I don’t know what she was thinking?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”
“There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” the president wrote.
Right now Pirro is probably sorry she left Fox News. We’ll see how long she keeps her job.
