Todd Blanche's Slush Fund For J6ers Officially Dead, Allegedly. Make Him AG Now?
Or so the Germans would have us believe.
There was a minute there last week when we thought that the nomination of granite-headed cumstain Todd Blanche to be the next attorney general of the United States might really be in trouble. No, really.
To catch you up, Blanche had recently sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings to take the “acting” off his current title. And for once, a high-level Donald Trump appointment had run into trouble in his own party, thanks to John Cornyn and Thom Tillis.
The two lame-duck senators had demanded multiple times that Blanche and the Justice Department commit in writing to killing off the $1.8 billion slush fund the administration created to pay off all the seditionists and Confederate-flag-waving honkies who were rightfully convicted of crimes on January 6 and later pardoned by Trump. No written agreement? No vote to send Blanche’s nomination to the floor to be approved by the full Senate.
And they were holding surprisingly fast to this demand, leading Trump to claim he might pull Blanche’s nomination:
The 210-day limit on “acting” appointments to serve meant Blanche couldn’t be acting AG past October 29. Keeping him on in violation of the law would just give angry Democrats more motivation to vote a week before Election Day. And the Senate isn’t likelier to be friendlier to Trump next year. If Democrats are in the majority, it will hopefully be much more hostile.
In short, there was ample reason for the administration to cave on this, and Trump tweeting threats was a sign of impotent flailing.
Ah, but that was last week and this is this week, and Cornyn and Tillis are, at heart, jellyfish. On Sunday night, Blanche issued a statement committing to the end of the slush fund. Though he was rather huffy about it:
What, you don’t trust us? We TOLD you we would kill the fund, but you want it in writing, so FINE, here it is in writing, MOM.
This statement by Blanche is meaningless. For one thing, while it kills this particular fund, what keeps them from creating another one? If Blanche’s order rescinds the order from May, could he issue a new order rescinding the rescindment later on, after he’s been sworn in? This is Trump we’re talking about; you must assume at all times that he is bullshitting you.
For another thing, Trump has made it clear he still wants to see his followers get paid off. If he can’t do it through this fund, he’ll find some other way. He said as much on Air Force One on Sunday night:
[T]he president again said he wanted a fund to serve as “a reimbursement for the pain” his allies suffered. He added, referring to himself in third person, “A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it.” (Of course they like it; they’re hoping for generous payouts.)
Just last week, the DOJ found a way to give a $1.1 million settlement to an anti-abortion protester who was pardoned by Trump after being convicted of blocking a reproductive health clinic entrance. They have paid out settlements to Michael Flynn for all the injury he allegedly suffered. The family of Ashli Babbitt received $5 million because a Capitol Police officer killed her, and she was rioting and threatening Congress on video.
Nonetheless, Cornyn and Tillis caved, because they are enormous weenies who don’t have any principles. They certainly are on board with all the chaos and lawlessness. They just wanted to make life harder for Trump for a couple of weeks as something of a “fuck you” for the part he played in ending their Senate careers. Long term, they don’t want Republicans mad at them. It might hurt their post-Senate lobbying careers.
These are Susan Collins levels of concern over an obviously corrupt deal. Like Collins, Tillis and Cornyn whined for two minutes before letting Trump have his way.
The new memo from Blanche also purports to clarify the terms of the deal that shielded the Trump family from audits of their tax returns, which had been part of the deal to end the Trumps’ lawsuit against the government that also included the $1.8 billion slush fund. Supposedly, that deal is only going to cover Trump and his two eldest sons, Eric and Don Jr. Blanche’s new order declares it only applies retroactively, as if that is going to stop the Trumps from filing dodgy returns in the future.
Making clear the Trumps can’t have past returns audited was auspicious timing, considering that we learned over the weekend that Capital One bank in mid-2021 closed a bunch of their accounts over suspicions the accounts were being used for money laundering.
The Trumps had sued Capital One, claiming the bank had closed the accounts as part of a push to distance itself from the president in the wake of January 6. Which Capital One would have been within its rights to do, according to the contract it had with the Trump Organization. That contract stated that Capital One can close accounts “at any time, for any or no reason.”
It sounds to us like if Capital One had decided it didn’t want to be in business with the Trumps because of politics, or because Donald Trump cheated while playing golf with its CEO, or because Junior snorted coke in its office, or because Eric doesn’t have the brains that God gave asparagus — allegedly, allegedly, true fact about Eric — that would have been legally fine. It would undoubtedly have been the most moral thing any bank has done since the Baileys used their honeymoon money to stop a run on their savings and loan.
The Trumps don’t even really dispute the “at any time, for any or no reason” language. But they are whiny and they love nuisance suits, so we get this:
The bank said the decision followed “months of analysis and a careful review” by its financial-crimes team, which it said was staffed by employees with “decades of law enforcement experience.” But the filings suggest the Trump Organization and affiliated entities were given no opportunity to address any money-laundering or compliance concerns before the accounts’ closures.
Trump has long been on a crusade to punish banks for “debanking” conservatives, which has mostly consisted of banks deciding in the wake of January 6 that they would prefer to not be in business with seditionists. Still, it seems kind of silly to draw attention to your own potential money laundering just to prove a point. But no one has ever gone broke overestimating the president’s intelligence.
To sum up: Thom Tillis and John Cornyn are the spineless, principle-free pussies we always knew they were, and Todd fucking Blanche is going to be attorney general of the United States. Unless someone figures out how to revoke his bar license. Which we are rooting very, very, very hard for.
Wonkette should also be compensated for the pain and suffering Trump has caused us by making us write about him for a decade, but until that fund is created, we rely on the support of our generous, hot, sexy readers.
He just said this: "You are fake news. Don't ever talk again."
And the muppet just sat there and took it.
The Slush Fund is not dead. It's just resting.