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Tuesday, May 19, 2026

We've actually had this item on the "to do" list for a few weeks. If ever there is a day to run it, today's definitely that day.


Yesterday, Donald Trump's lawyers saw the writing on the wall and realized his and his kids' "lawsuit" against the IRS was going to be carefully investigated by the judge in the case, which would put his latest, greatest grift at risk.


Monday, May 18, 2026

Future historians may record May 14, 2026, as the day the leader of the United States, the greatest superpower in the history of the world, acknowledged that the country was declining ... read more


Sunday, May 17, 2026

The media landscape is very grim. read more


The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the abortion pill to be prescribed through telemedicine and dispensed by mail, restoring for now a 2023 federal rule ... read more


Comments

Den of Thieves

How To Claw Back what Trump Just Stole

Rick Wilson | May 19, 2026

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Let's not pretend we don't know exactly what we just watched.

It was a daylight robbery, a smash and grab of $1.8 billion of your money.

This essay isn't about simply what happened, and why we're so numb to it, but on how to turn this on Trump, the corrupt Todd Blanche DOJ, MAGA, and the GOP and make this robbery a political poison pill they'll regret for a very long time.

On Monday, the Department of Justice ... your Department of Justice, the one your tax dollars fund, the one with "Justice" literally chiseled into the stone ... announced it was scraping $1.776 billion out of the federal Treasury and pouring it into a fund to pay off Donald Trump's friends, lackeys, cronies, and the terrorist goons who beat cops with flagpoles on January 6th.


They named it the "Anti-Weaponization Fund," which is trolling in itself, the kind of name you pick when you have weaponized the government so completely that you've started to enjoy the irony. They set the number at $1.776 billion ... a cute little wink at 1776 and our 250th anniversary, because nothing says Spirit of the Revolution like looting the public purse to reward an insurrection against the nation.

This is how filthy it is: Trump sued the IRS, an agency of the government he runs, for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. He sued himself, essentially, and then settled with himself.

complete Rick Wilson opinion piece

#13

TrumpWatch 2026, Part I: The Greatest Grift on Earth

snip

... the terms by which the slush fund will operate are pretty broad, because they want to be able to pay out a lot of different kinds of cronies.

But what happens if James Comey applies for some money? Or Letitia James? Or Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ)?

The shadowy figures who are going to administer the fund won't pay those people, of course, and the Trump targets will be able to go on TV and/or file lawsuits that bring all kinds of attention to the fact that the whole thing is just self-dealing. That trio, joined by a few others, could give Trump & Co. several black eyes before this is all said and done.

snip ...

Here is the backstory. Trump sued the IRS for $10,000,000,000.00 because IRS supposedly leaked his tax returns. He also filed a couple of other lawsuits against the government. The IRS had to respond to the lawsuits. Instead of saying: "Buzz off, see you in court," the agency, which is ultimately under Trump's control, said: "Let's make a deal. We will give you $1,776,000,000 ($1.776B) to settle all the lawsuits." So, Trump was effectively negotiating with himself, which may be the only way he can actually come out on top in a negotiation. Trump the defendant wanted the problem to go away so he offered Trump the plaintiff a great deal and Trump the plaintiff took it.

The nature of the deal is that Trump gets a giant slush fund run by a secret board Blanche appoints (but that Trump can fire) and which makes secret decisions about what happens to that money. One thing that seems likely is that the Jan. 6 rioters who tried to overthrow the government by force will get some of it. There were 1,600 of them. Suppose each one gets, say, $100,000. That would leave $1,540,000,000 in the slush fund for Trump to do whatever he wanted. Rioters happy, Trump happy, Raskin unhappy, but you can't please all the people all the time.

At the moment, some of the details are fuzzy, presumably intentionally so. Most obviously, it's not clear who can, and cannot, lay hands on the money. Reportedly, the "settlement agreement" bars Trump and his two sons (i.e., the parties to the now-dropped lawsuit) from claiming any portion of the fund. But the Trumps have spent their whole lives doing end runs around rules like this. For example, what if the secret committee decides that the Trump Organization has been damaged to the tune of $1.2 billion? Well, that payment would not go to the Trumps, technically, it would go to the "person" that is their S-Corp. And yet, the money would end up in their pockets, anyhow. Alternatively, this is also a president who has claimed that [THING X] is true of some amount of money, and then moved on to [THING Y] once attention died down. For example, does anyone know anymore where the ballroom donations went, or whether they will ever actually be used on this project? Or where all the inaugural celebration funds went? We certainly don't.

Will this scam work? Who knows? George Washington didn't try to rip off the government. Neither did John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or any other president until now. Could someone stop this? Well, there may be a few potential obstacles:

snip ...

Yesterday, Donald Trump's lawyers saw the writing on the wall and realized his and his kids' "lawsuit" against the IRS was going to be carefully investigated by the judge in the case, which would put his latest, greatest grift at risk. So, his lawyers filed a "notice" dismissing the fake case with prejudice (notice is in quotes, because it should be styled as a request to dismiss the case). Moments thereafter, Trump's former personal attorney, and current acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the official creation of a $1.776 (get it?) billion slush fund to be doled out by a committee appointed by Blanche. Supposedly, anyone who has felt they've been wronged by the Justice Department is eligible to receive some funds. But you should take that promise with several grains of salt.

Such flagrant and large-scale grift, and all in one fell swoop, has no real precedent in American history. Wherever Boss Tweed, the Teapot Dome guys and Spiro Agnew are right now, they're surely impressed.

If you tried to put this into a movie, the audience wouldn't buy it. But you can't make this stuff up. Really. If you don't believe us, check the story at The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, ABC News, CNBC, or Vox. They can't all be wrong. But if you don't trust any media outlet, then how about a press release from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee? Here is the first paragraph of Raskin's statement:

Donald Trump is orchestrating a $1,700,000,000 fraud on the American taxpayer to line the pockets of his MAGA political allies, another installment in his ongoing effort to turn the federal government into a personal cash machine for his unpopular extremist movement. This is a massive and unprecedented presidential plunder of the American people. Worse still, this is only the beginning - a declaration that the prior payouts were just a down payment, and that he now intends to earmark billions more in taxpayer dollars for his political allies, sycophants and private militia of unemployed insurrectionists.
Nice that Raskin wrote the number out in full rather than writing $1.7B. Makes it look bigger. Raskin should have written $1,776,000,000.00 though, with the silly number tricks and the "cents."

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