To the Editor:
Since the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity ruling already shields Trump from prosecution for official acts, why does he (and his entire family and businesses) need to be protected from any federal prosecution or civil action for crimes “presently known or unknown?”
What’s the Grifter-in-Chief afraid we’re going to find out that we don’t already know?
Aren’t you just the tiniest bit curious to see who gets your money?
Too bad. That’s his little secret.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
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To the Editor:
Very glad to hear that you finally took a vacation. I understand that you make the rules about Realities, and I will try to limit the LTTEs to one issue, but I was disappointed last week that the issue you chose as consequential was Trump’s indisputable groveling reverence for despots.
The WH is “the People’s House,” and was never intended to compete with the golden halls of The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Buckingham Palace, or Versailles, homes of tsars and kings who considered themselves, personally, identical with the government of their respective countries, with taxes spent at the will of the autocrat. I thought we rejected all that in 1776.
The current occupant of Our House has not only tried to emulate the material excesses of bygone potentates, he also considers any challenge to him to be a threat to the country (like Louis XVI, “I am the State”). He and his administration have become the dirtiest swamp in 250 years of our democratic republic, but Trump knows that his base will never admit it or hold him accountable. So, he contemptuously scoops up whatever he can, whenever he can, from whomever he can. I am limited to just one example.
Trump sued the DOT/IRS for $10 billion for an IRS agent’s leak of his tax returns (who was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison) in Trump’s first term. The Statute of Limitations has expired, so the lawsuit was worth nothing, so Trump “negotiated” a bogus settlement with his own DOJ for $1.8 billion, to be established as a fund for lawsuit payouts against the government. The “Weaponization Fund” Agreement provides that Trump would have complete Fund control, without public oversight or accountability, through a five-member committee designated by the AG, to serve at Trump’s pleasure. A “slush fund” which amounts to a Trump piggybank constituted with your tax dollars in a fraudulent “settlement.”
Disbursements would be made to anyone “harmed by past administrations,” not excluding the January 6 insurrectionists who injured 140 police officers and invaded the Capitol to overthrow an election, wielding makeshift weapons, depositing bodily fluids and feces throughout, breaking doors and furniture, erecting gallows on the lawn, and terrifying lawmakers. A “tourist contingent.” Those 1,500 individuals were convicted and sentenced but pardoned by Trump. Apparently, the Nation owes them compensation for their self-inflicted butthurt.
Indecent as that grift is, Trump included a provision (Section III.B., and Addendum to make it extra-clear) that prohibits any IRS audit for past tax filings of Trump, his family, and his businesses. The Trumps know what’s contained in those tax returns and want past fraud to be beyond prosecution. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said of the scheme, “This is just stupid on stilts.” But Trump is hardly “stupid,” though he has often relied on it in others.
At first, Trump strenuously denied he was involved in creation of the Fund. By Friday, he wanted to be thanked for his act of selflessness for refusing a “personal payout”, an “absolute fortune,” to instead opt to “help others” who were “badly abused by an evil, corrupt and weaponized Biden administration.” One X poster remarked, “Not content to just rip us all off, he expects praise for it.”
I’d like to think that the Republican Senate refused to authorize the Fund for moral or legal reasons, or because they finally understood who Trump is. But the revolt was actually precipitated by Trump’s attacks on three of their own. Trump primaried, for lack of 100% Trump servility, Republican Senators Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, and Tom Massie. Ironically, their absences give Democrats a chance at taking the Senate, too. But, if the past is any indication, upon their return from Memorial Day recess, after Trump has a chance to issue all his threats, they will swallow their rebellion and fold. I could be wrong about that, but am willing to be astonished and gratified.
By the time you read this, we will know more about the proposed Iran Peace MOU.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca