Surprise! They're Still Planning Payouts To J6 Rioters ... C'mon, You Could At Least *Act* Surprised.
The crime droog slush fund is dead. Long live the crime droog slush fund!
Last week, (acting) Attorney General Todd Blanche said to a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee that there’s no need for Congress to put any kind of limits on the big $1.776 billion slush fund he created to pay January 6 chuds for their service to the nation in trying to overthrow the government. No sirree, he said, “We’re not moving forward with the fund,” so you people can just stop talking about blocking it or limiting who can get money. The fund will be going away, for real, so there’s nothing for Congress to limit, OK?
Of course, Blanche wasn’t under oath for his testimony, and he refused to put any of that in writing, because why do members of Congress expect him to do the impossible? Anyway, the fund was officially very very dead, and by Friday, the Justice Department even promised a federal court that the deal to compensate “victims of weaponization” was so completely no longer a thing that the judge could go ahead and dismiss a lawsuit filed to stop the scheme. The DOJ even cited Blanche’s statements to Congress to claim that the slush fund is no longer a thing. The fund “had not been set up and is now not going forward,” DOJ lawyers wrote in a filing, so the lawsuit was now “moot and premature.”
That’s just logic: if there is no fund, the lawsuit is done.
But in a twist that absolutely everyone saw coming, the Atlantic reports (gift link) that administration insiders have “quietly assured allies that plans for some form of payout remain on track,” according to “eight people familiar with the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund” who spoke to reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick. The administration is simply trying to keep it as quiet as possible this time around, so the brave insurrectionists and cop-beaters of January 6 can get their payouts without interference from meddling courts, congressional committees, or those kids in the green van with the talking dog.
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Those anonymous insiders — who include “current and former Justice Department officials, current and former members of Congress, a defense attorney, and political operatives close to the administration” — said that it’s unclear whether the Cop-Bashers’ Compensation Fund would be resurrected in part or in whole, or whether some sort of “alternative arrangements” might be made. But one way or another, the thugs will get the payout Trump thinks they deserve. Fitzpatrick’s sources told her that
the work is being kept quiet while the Trump administration waits for opposition to the fund to blow over. Crucially, the administration is also trying to avoid a fight over the payout plan, which has been deemed a political slush fund by critics, while the Senate considers Blanche’s nomination for attorney general.
Even a few Republicans — including senators on the Judiciary Committee, like retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, who is all out of fucks to give — have said they’re considering holding up Blanche’s confirmation until they see proof that the slush fund isn’t merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead. Blanche’s job is now apparently to show them a blurry photo of a corpse in a coffin and hope they don’t notice it’s just Stephen Miller napping while the sun is out.
Regardless of Blanche’s ass-covering assertions to Congress, the administration hasn’t actually renounced the slush fund, and doesn’t intend to. Two of the Atlantic’s sources explained that White House officials “didn’t think the fund was a bad idea; they just regretted that the rollout […] had been too public and invited too much scrutiny.” Now it’s just a matter of paying off the rioters in ways that will attract less attention, especially ahead of the midterm elections.
One Republican who’s no longer a member of Congress told Fitzpatrick that “he and others had been assured that the administration’s public statements about the weaponization fund being abandoned were “all part of the plan; nothing has changed.” Other sources made clear that the talk about the scheme being dead was simply a strategy to get Blanche confirmed, after which compensation to criminal Trump loyalists would be arranged.
Good heavens! We thought telling the public one thing while planning to do the exact opposite after the Senate confirms you was only for Supreme Court nominees. Susan Collins must be very concerned indeed!
The exact details of Goon-Payoff Scheme 2: Electric Boogaloo are still being worked out, but it might involve putting together a way to streamline payments from the DOJ’s “judgment fund,” an uncapped appropriation that’s normally used to pay out claims in lawsuits against the government. Normally, those funds are only paid out after the government loses in court or reaches a formal settlement with the plaintiff, but Fitzpatrick reports the administration is “exploring proposals to facilitate litigation and to expedite payments without requiring an expensive and lengthy process that might draw attention.”
One former DOJ official summarized it as a very simple plan: the J6ers and others will sue, and the DOJ will settle, easy peasy, although how such a scheme would escape a judge’s notice is anyone’s guess. Not that the administration worries too much about court orders anyway.
Donald Trump is, of course, doing his usual dance around the status of the treason compensation fund, insisting to NBC news that “If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” and refusing to say whether the payoffs are dead. He sure doesn’t want them to be, although he says it’s all out of his hands because while he is the absolute boss of the DOJ when he wants to be, sometimes it’s more convenient to say he has no say in matters that don’t poll well.
Lawyers for plaintiffs challenging the fund were quick to argue in court that Trump’s expressions of continuing support for the slush fund, his refusal to say it had really been ended, and other administration shiftiness made it “impossible for Plaintiffs or the Court to credit Defendants’ representations,” because why would you ever take Trump and company at their word? Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward, which is representing some of the plaintiffs, directly challenged Blanche in a social media post telling him, “If you can say it on TV, you should say it in court.”
Friday, the federal judge in the case, Judge Leonie Brinkema, made permanent her earlier temporary injunction against the fund, noting that the DOJ hasn’t pledged under oath that the fund is dead dead, or that it won’t be resurrected in another form, possibly that of a large and moving Torb.
Brinkema extended her initial injunction until further notice, noting that the government’s “mootness argument, in my view, doesn’t go anywhere,” unless the assurances about fund being cancelled are made “under the penalty of perjury,” so there’s a way to hold Trump and the DOJ to the promise.
Judge Brinkema also cited Trump’s statements in support of paying off insurrectionists as evidence that the administration may yet attempt to go forward with the payouts by other means, which would still be a no-no. The judge also tried to pin down DOJ attorney Andrew Block on why Blanche still hasn’t rescinded the order that set up the fund in the first place, but Brock waffled, claiming he doesn’t “have the ability to speak directly to the attorney general.”
Brock’s dodge didn’t work with Brinkema, who refused to suffer such foolishness.
“I can not believe given the significance you don’t have an answer,” Brinkema shot back. She added “there’s a huge gap in the record” if we don’t have an answer to that question.
Brinkema said there was simply too much risk that the administration would try to get cute to please the “president,” noting that “When the President of the United States says he’s going to be pretty upset if something happens, that’s a pretty good incentive” to try to sidestep a court order. She’s been paying attention!
She did, however, give the government a chance to prove giving the administration a week to file a declaration from Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, stating under penalty of perjury that the fund is dead and won’t be revived in any form.
We sure hope Judge Birkema will have the bastards videotaped to make sure they don’t cross their fingers as they sign it. Keep your eye on this case; it’s probably not over.
[Atlantic (gift link) / The Hill / NBC News / Reuters]
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sigh
republicans murdered language
because when words cease to have durable meanings, there can be no accountability
and then anything goes
wheeeeeee!
Since CBS handed Byron Allen the 11:35 p.m. slot formerly occupied by Colbert's The Late Show — with Allen Media footing all production costs under a "time buy" arrangement — Nielsen data reviewed by Status show nearly two-thirds of the audience Colbert was drawing toward the end of his run has fled.
And media experts say that massive damage won't stay contained to the late night time slot.
"Within the television industry, it was figured out quite quickly that a popular late-night program would provide a lift to a morning show," University of Maine communications and journalism professor Michael Socolow told Status.
"Early audience studies revealed that people habitually left their TVs tuned to a channel, and they wouldn't switch channels the next time they turned on the TV unless they did not like what they were watching."
Late local news is also exposed. "People who wanted to watch Colbert, a lot of them probably watch late local news," said Bill Carter, the veteran New York Times media reporter and author of multiple books on late-night television. By canceling Colbert, Carter said, CBS "diminished itself."
Allen, 65, said from the outset he wasn't chasing Colbert's audience. "At the end of the day, I'm not trying to replace Colbert," he told NPR last month. "I am not trying to hold on to his audience because Comics Unleashed has been around 20 years and has its own audience."
***
I think the point is, Byron the Billionaire Parasite,,,whar audience? Whar?
And diminishing CBS was the objective of purchase.