Justice Department Approves $1.7 Billion Slush Fund for Trump Allies and Insurrectionists

Trump sued the IRS for leaking his tax reports, the ones that showed that this billionaire seldom paid taxes. Some years, he paid none at all. No wonder he wouldn’t release them, unlike every Presidential candidate since Nixon.

Did anyone think that Trump would walk away empty-handed? Of course not. He was suing himself. If it had gone to court, the judge (an Obama appointee)would likely have thrown the case out because there were not two adversaries, but the President suing an agency he controls.

The Justice Department has already awarded $1.25 million to Michael Flynn, who was convicted by a jury, and an equal amount to Carter Page, a figure in the Russia investigation during Trump’s first term.

Doubtless, Tina Peters will cash in, along with the insurrectionists who beat up police officers. So much for “law and order.” Storm the Capitol, defecate on its floor, bash a cop in the head, get convicted by a jury, get a full pardon from Trump, then collect an award! What a country.

The Associated Press reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration on Monday announced the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they were mistreated by the Biden administration Justice Department.

The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced by the Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the fund in a statement that it was “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”

Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight what they called a “corrupt” and unprecedented resolution, warning that the arrangement would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution.

Trump’s lawyers disclosed the dismissal of the case in a filing Monday in federal court in Florida, where the president sued earlier this year.

The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the administration’s eagerness to reward allies who before Trump came to power were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted. Most notably, the president on his first day back in office pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His Justice Department since then has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries.

“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

Trump’s attorneys suggested in their court filing seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a challenge.

Democracy Docket Denounces Colorado Governor Polis’ Decision to Release Tina Peters

Governor Jared Polis stunned defenders of democracy and fair elections by commuting the prison sentence of Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who was serving a nine-year sentence for her actions. She was sentenced in October 2024.

Peters first certified the 2020 elections as fair, then allowed fellow election deniers access to the voting machines in her county. She was tried by a jury of her peers in a Republican county by a Republican prosecutor and found guilty.

Trump pressured Polis to release Peters, even threatening to cut off federal funds to Colorado if Peters was not freed. Trump gave her a federal pardon, but it had no effect on her state conviction.

Last week, Governor Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year sentence. She will be free in a matter of days. He says he thought her sentence was too harsh.

Democracy Docket, a site established by attorney Marc Elias to monitor and report on voting rights and fair elections, denounced Polis’s decision to free Peters. His decision is a win for election deniers and Trump. It makes light of her dereliction of duty. She is likely to win a big reward from Trump’s slush fund of $1.7 billion for his allies, if that grift is approved by the Treasury Departnent and allowed to stand by the courts.

Democracy Docket released this statement:

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced Friday he is granting clemency to Tina Peters — the former election official convicted for her role in a voting system breach — cutting her sentence and making her eligible for parole as soon as next month.

The move marks a dramatic and controversial intervention in one of the most closely watched election interference cases to emerge after the 2020 election — and comes after months of sustained pressure from President Donald Trump and his far-right allies to secure Peters’ release.

“We condemn Governor Polis’ clemency grant. It is a gross injustice to our elections, election workers and democracy with far-reaching consequences,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said in a statement. “This is a dark day for democracy.”

According to local reports, Polis is reducing Peters’ nine-year prison sentence, saying her guilt was not in dispute but that the punishment itself was excessive.

“She got a sentence that was harsh. It was a 9 year sentence,” Polis said in March. “So we always look at people’s sentences. And when you have people that are elderly, and we’re looking at this across a number of many people — people in their 70s or 80s in our system — how much of a threat to society are they and how do we balance that in a way that makes sure they can spend their last year few years at home?”

The decision leaves intact Peters’ felony conviction — but significantly shortens the consequences for a case that election officials and democracy advocates have pointed to as a clear example of accountability for tampering with election systems.

“It’s unfortunate to see the Governor of Colorado succumbing to the bullying tactics of election conspiracy theorists. He has thrown state and county election officials, Republicans and Democrats, under the bus after they resisted the corruption Ms. Peters engaged in and withstood attacks for many years as a result,” David Becker, executive director of Center for Election Innovation & Research, said. “Ms. Peters continues to express no remorse about her crimes and will likely now be a featured performer on the election grift circuit. It is a sad day for the rule of law and accountability.”

Peters was convicted in 2024 after prosecutors showed she facilitated unauthorized access to Mesa County voting equipment and helped expose sensitive system data, actions driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. A jury found her guilty on multiple counts, and she was sentenced to nine years in prison.

“Tina Peters’ actions have made life harder, not only for election officials here in Colorado, but make no mistake, for election officials all across the country. Her conduct became a rallying point for election conspiracy movements that fueled hostility and distrust towards the very people responsible for administering free and fair elections,” Matt Crane, a former Republican clerk and executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said. “Rather than standing with public service servants and defending one of our nation’s most cherished rights, the right to vote, Governor Polis is bending the knee to the same political forces and conspiracy movements that are actively undermining confidence in our democratic institutions. That choice carries consequences far beyond this single case.”

Polis’ clemency order follows an April ruling from a Colorado appeals court that upheld Peters’ conviction but ordered her to be resentenced.

Polis said he agreed that her political beliefs — including her promotion of election conspiracy theories — should not factor into the length of her punishment.

“Clerks have been intimidated. We’ve had clerks have their lives threatened. We had a clerk who was pregnant in 2022 have her unborn child threatened. We had an office in Colorado fire bombed last year,” Crane added. “So whether it’s Tina or somebody else who’s spreading false rumors and inciting people to do violent things, unfortunately, we have to spend a lot of time preparing for that.”

After Colorado officials refused to release Peters, Trump escalated his campaign on her behalf, issuing a symbolic presidential pardon that carries no legal force over state convictions and repeatedly attacking Colorado leaders. The administration also took punitive actions against the state, including moves affecting federal funding and the relocation of key federal assets.

At the same time, far-right figures and election deniers have increasingly framed Peters as a political prisoner, with some escalating to threats of violence and calls for direct intervention to free her — rhetoric that alarmed state officials and democracy watchdogs.

Polis had previously rejected any suggestion that Peters’ case would be influenced by political pressure.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and in a Republican county of Colorado and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws including criminal impersonation,” Polis said in December. “No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions. This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”

Matt Cohen contributed to this reporting.

Was Kash Patel’s Snorkeling Trip at Pearl Harbor Sacrilegious?

There’s not much these days that can shock the sensibilities of ordinary human beings, but this story might be one of those exceptions.

FBI Director Kash Patel went swimming on a “VIP Snorkel” trip near the remains of the USS Arizona, in which nearly 1,000 American sailors and Marines have been entombed since December 7, 1941. Some people may say it’s no big deal but others are shocked by his lack of discretion and decency.

The New York Times reported:

Last summer, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, capped a whirlwind South Pacific trip with a snorkel trip in Hawaii.

There, Navy SEALs used two boats to transport and escort Mr. Patel and nine other people on what a Defense Department email called a “V.I.P. Snorkel” next to one of the military’s most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the U.S.S. Arizona that holds the remains of more than 900 Navy sailors and Marines who died at Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes, according to the Navy.

Out of respect for the dead entombed in the wreck of the Arizona, rules bar visitors even from wearing swimwear at the memorial. With some exceptions over the years for dignitaries, the only people allowed in the water around the tomb are military and National Park Service divers interring the remains of the last Arizona survivors in the wreck, or conducting annual maintenance surveys, according to a former Navy officer and a former National Park Service official familiar with restrictions at the site.

Officials from the Navy and the Defense Department said V.I.P. “tours” near the Arizona were common, but they declined to say how often they take people snorkeling. A Navy spokeswoman declined to identify the nine people who joined Mr. Patel on the trip. The F.B.I. said that Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the head of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, invited Mr. Patel to Pearl Harbor.

The New York Times obtained details of the Pearl Harbor trip through a Freedom of Information Act request and information from a former F.B.I. official. Mr. Patel’s participation in the snorkeling trip was reported earlier by The Associated Press.

The idea of a high-ranking government official receiving an escort from the SEALs for a recreational swim near the tomb is “horrifying,” said William M. McBride, a Navy veteran and professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

“This is a war grave with the same legal status as Arlington National Cemetery,” Mr. McBride said in an interview. “Snorkeling around Arizona is as disrespectful as playing kickball on top of the graves at Arlington.”

The Pearl Harbor trip was at the end of an itinerary in which Mr. Patel visited F.B.I. facilities in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. Disclosure of the snorkeling tour, and new details about other trips he has taken, comes as Mr. Patel is already under scrutiny for blending leisure travel with official business or instructing F.B.I. employees to make accommodations for him and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.

How Helicopter Parents Undermine Their Children

This article warns that “helicopter parents,” those who hover over their children, actually are causing their children to be more anxious, more dependent, less confident.

Journalist Evelyn Hart reports on a paper that was published in 2023 but didn’t get much attention. It says that helicopter parents are stressing out their children.

I definitely did not have helicopter parents. I was one of eight children, and no one was sure where we were between the end of the school day and dinner time. Everyone magically appeared at dinner time. I was a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and my parents set us free. They were working. That was the parenting style at the time. I carpooled to school, and after school I was on my own. I would get on my bicycle and set off to see friends or just to take a long ride.

Times have certainly changed. Younger parents–my children–want to know, need to know, where their children are. Who are they with? Is there an adult present? How will they get home? Are they safe?

Somehow the world seems less safe than when I was a pre-teen and teen. Maybe parents are more worried because the world is less safe.

What do you think?

Hart writes:

A generation praised for toughness may have been shaped by something far less comforting: the everyday absence adults rarely admit mattered.

They were the kids who walked to school alone, settled their own playground disputes, and heard “be back by dinner” as the only rule. That kind of childhood has largely vanished, replaced by a world where parents can track their children’s location down to the driveway. Now a comprehensive meta-analysis published in Development and Psychopathology has put hard numbers behind what many have suspected: when parents hover too closely, their children’s mental health may pay a price.

Open the link to read her summary of the study.

Robert Reich on America’s Madman-in-Chief

Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, posted a provocative column overnight.

Friends,

My first quote of the week comes from Trump on Air Force One, on his way back from Beijing on Friday — telling David Sanger of The New York Times:

“I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it’s treason.”

Note Trump’s use of the pronoun “I.” He didn’t say “we” had a military victory. Trump’s malignant narcissism is worsening. 

Also take note of his blatant lie. His war in Iran has been anything but a victory. His delusions and deceptions about the war are escalating. 

Americans are far worse off today than we were before Trump started his war. We’re now paying $1.50 a gallon more for gas, on average. Paying even more, indirectly, for the diesel fuel powering trucks that transport much of what we buy. Food costs are also rising because the fertilizer used to grow much of the food we eat can’t move through the Strait of Hormuz. The soaring cost of jet fuel is also being passed on to those of us who fly. 

And none of these costs will come down soon, even if the war ends tomorrow, because the price for oil is largely set in a global market, and much of the oil infrastructure of the Middle East is in ruins. 

Trump has made it harder for us to switch from oil and gas to renewable sources of energy, in which China is excelling. Trump loves fossil fuels — he’s subsidizing oil and gas and has ended subsidies for renewables (remember his election deal with Big Oil?) — but the future lies with wind, solar, and biomass, and the batteries that store them. 

And note the not-so-subtle threat Trump directed at Sanger — that Sanger could be accused of treason if he continued to report that Trump’s war is failing. Trump’s dangerous accusations are intensifying. 

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me.”

Which brings me to my other quote of the week — Trump’s comment just before leaving for China that:

I believe the first part, that Trump doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation; he never has and never will. But it can’t possibly be that the only thing motivating him is preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. 

I say this because we were much closer to achieving this goal when Iran was still observing the nuclear deal it struck with Barack Obama — in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities, including reducing its enriched uranium stockpile and modifying reactors to prevent the production of weapons-grade plutonium. (In exchange, the United States, United Nations, and European Union agreed to lift international economic and financial sanctions on Iran.)

But Trump pulled out of that deal. And Iran’s new leadership is hellbent on creating a nuclear weapon. Trump’s and Israel’s aggression apparently have proven to Iran’s new (and more extremist) leaders how much they need it. And the Trump regime has no idea where Iran is storing its near-weapons-grade plutonium. 

Friends, a madman is in charge of American foreign policy — but almost no Republican member of Congress, no major CEO or university president or head of a major foundation, and certainly no member of Trump’s regime is willing to sound the alarm. They are all cowards. 

I mentioned to you earlier this week that I had dinner with a group of political operatives who gave 30 percent odds that JD Vance and Marco Rubio would lead a coup within the next three to four months, invoking the 25th Amendment to get rid of the madman. Those odds may be higher now. 

But you and I are not powerless. We can achieve the next best outcome — limiting Trump’s power to do more damage — by getting out the vote on or before November 3 and throwing the cowardly Republican senators and representatives out on their assets. 

We have less than six months to get the largest midterm turnout in American history — a blue tsunami that will start the process of repair, reform, and return to sanity. 

I know how frightening and discouraging all of this has been. I know how daunting the forces of cruelty and corruption can sometimes feel. I also know how hard you’ve been fighting, while at the same time working to keep yourself, your family, and your community on an even keel. And I thank you for it. 

Despite Trump, please do not feel shame in America. Feel pride in the ideals we share. Feel honored that you are an activist warrior on the right side of history. Feel strength in our conviction. Feel power in our cause.

Have no doubt: We will prevail against the madman-in-chief and his lawless regime.