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Notes -
Is presidential corruption still culture war?
You may or may not remember that back in January of this year President Trump, in his personal capacity, sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion in damages related to leaks of his tax returns by a contractor back in 2018-2020. I don't want to dig into the merits of the case as such, except I'll note the legal discussion I've read seems to have a consensus that the case is very weak. It is also very unusual for a sitting President to be suing the government he is in charge of. There are obvious conflicts of interest involved. So much so the judge in that case issued an order for the parties to explain how they are actually adverse to each other, how they disagree, so that the cases and controversies requirement of the constitution is satisfied.
As of today, it seems we may never find out how good the claims are or aren't, how adverse the parties are or aren't. Trump filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss his lawsuit, pursuant to the establishment of a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund". It's not even clear to me the fund is going to be administered by the United States government, as paragraph C provides:
Is this going to be the new normal? If you're President and Congress won't give you the money you want to pay your friends and allies you can get however much you want with this one weird trick!
ETA:
ABC reports that the fund will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by the Attorney General, but the members will all be removable at-will by the President.
MAGA is the most corrupt political movement in my lifetime in the US. It might be the most corrupt movement in US history, though I'm not sure how it would compare to some of the stuff in the Gilded Age. Republicans deflect the open corruption of Trump by presuming (mostly without evidence) that "all politicians do it, Trump is just honest about it!!!" Then they go off on something like Hunter Biden or Congressional stock trades, which involve like 1/100th of the value of what Trump is doing.
And Dems don't care that much either, as they'd rather focus on hallucinations like Trump raping children with Epstein. The corruption might appear in the laundry lists of grievances they throw out against Trump, but it's hardly a motivating factor for most.
I don't know how you can say this with a straight face when the last President blanket pardoned his own son for more than a decade of crimes.
He even did it preemptively, pardoning him for actions he could have taken in the future, all the way to the end of the Presidential term.
That same son made millions on bogus board positions in Ukraine which were obviously bribes. Ukraine which blew up into a war during that President's term, and where billions of dollars have been thrown down a black hole.
So, there's a really high bar for corrupt political movements.
Pardoning his son was easily the most despicable act in Biden's presidency. But it was not a Tuesday. There is no long and proud tradition of Democratic presidents handing out preemptive pardons like candy.
With Trump, a pardon of some fraudster in exchange to cash (or investment in his shitcoins, which amounts to the same thing) is mostly a Tuesday.
Nor do I think it is sound to insinuate that the support of the Ukraine in the war was a reaction of Ukrainians buying access to Biden through his son. A lot of countries support Ukraine, not all had a president's son on some shady board of directors.
Supporting Ukraine was totally in character for US foreign policy between 1950 and 2005. To my knowledge, Ukraine does not even have a well-funded lobby organization to bribe congressmen to vote for military aid, unlike some other country which received 10G$ a year during a conflict viewed slightly more controversially in the Western world. But AIPAC makes a bad case to argue that the Dems are the party of corruption because MAGA's support for Israel's military causes makes Biden's look modest.
It is well known that there was a bit of a swamp in DC. Big donors would probably not be willing to spend on PACs if the politicians were all unwavering loyal to their ideas and the will of the people. There is certainly a revolving door between policymakers and the industries which they regulate. Nobody believes that a politician paid as an advisor for some company is really giving advice worth his salary.
To try a slightly unhygienic metaphor, if DC was a swimming pool it would be well known that people sometimes piss in it. When Biden pardoned his son for any and all crimes, that was akin to standing on the pool's side and openly pissing into it.
But what Trump is doing is getting up to the topmost board of the diving tower, pulling down his trunks, squatting at the end and letting turd after turd drop in the pool.
Pardoning his son was one of the few human acts Biden did as president, and he shouldn't have lied about it.
All the other political pardons were despicable.
If that would have been the only way to prevent his son from being locked up in federal prison due to malicious prosecution for as long as MAGA would hold power, I might agree with you.
But my general take on the finances of the Biden family is that they would probably have managed to buy a plane ticket to Vancouver and rent him a room in the outskirts. It seems unlikely that Trump would have offered Canada sufficient concessions to get them to extradite him, "we lowered our tariffs by ten percent but in turn we got Hunter Biden" would not play well with his voters -- they were never chanting about locking him up the way they were about Mrs Clinton. Sure, Trump would probably have wasted a few millions of taxpayer money to charge him with everything on the book, but in the end he would have been a target of opportunity rather than Trump's white whale.
Biden feeling the need to do anything about Hunter was a clear vote of no confidence in the US justice system. That is already a pretty damning signal to send by the president. But the fact that he did not pick the option available to most Americans in a similar situation -- exile -- is a hundred times more damning still. It is basically saying
Basically, every one of the millions of anti-ICE protesters has more balls (irrespective of gender identity) than all of the Biden family put together. They know that the eye of Sauron could fall on them at any minute and they could charged with making a false statement to a bank a decade ago, and that they would not have a powerful daddy who would pay Trump a bribe or make some deal getting them favorable prison conditions.
A great president would say that if the government imprisoned the innocent, then the right place for their innocent son would be to be imprisoned with his fellow countrymen. A decent president would send his son to comfortable exile -- about a million times less harsh than what random penniless political refugees or Assange have taken upon them to escape unjust punishment. Only a despicable president would refuse to make any trade-offs with regards to the signals he sends to his people.
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