Donald Trump sent out the Vice President and Attorney General who valiantly tied themselves in knots on TV trying to justify his billion dollar ‘slush fund’ for violent insurrectionists. Here’s everything that happened in Trumpworld today that you need to know about
Donald Trump sent out his attorney general, then his Vice President to defend the indefensible today.
As the details of the “slush fund” the US government is setting up to funnel cash to his allies and the violent rioters who tried to mount a coup to keep him in power sank in, Todd Blanche – his former personal lawyer – was up before a Senate Committee. And later JD Vance subbed in as press secretary for a day, reminding everyone that he is willing to say just about anything to own the libs. So what was Trump doing while everyone around him was tying themselves in knots to justify using taxpayers cash to pay insurrectionists?
Well, exactly what you’d imagine. He was talking about his ballroom.
Here’s everything you need to know.
1. Trump says ballroom is a “shield” for his subterranean bunker
Donald Trump took reporters on a tour of the construction of his giant vanity ballroom earlier, during which he possibly let slip a bit more than he should have about the massive bunker and military facility that’s going to be hidden beneath it.
He said it would go down “six storeys”, would be able to launch “unlimited drones”… and he said the ballroom itself would act as a “shield” for what is underneath.
Definitely not late-stage dictator vibes.
2. Worse than Watergate
So it’s official – Trump has dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, plus a couple of other frivolous, nonsensical lawsuits relating to the perfectly legitimate investigation and prosecution of crimes he committed during his first term.
And the settlement, cooked up between Donald Trump, the IRS (which Donald Trump controls) and the Justice Department (which Donald Trump controls) is startling.
A £1.776 billion fund will be set up to pay out compensation to people who Trump thinks were wronged by the justice department during and after his first term. That includes people who were convicted of crimes related to the January 6th insurrection – including people who violently assaulted police officers – and were pardoned by Trump on his first day back in office. And if you think that’s bad – you might want to sit down while I explain how the fund is going to be operated.
So, Payouts will be decided by a board of six people, five of whom will be appointed by the Attorney General – that’s currently a guy called Todd Blanche. He used to be Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. So the board will effectively be selected by Donald Trump. A sixth member will be chosen “in consultation” with congressional leadership. But the President can remove any member for any reason at any time, so good luck with that one. There’s no requirement for the board to be subject to any oversight relating to the payouts, or to publish who got paid and how much.
The House Judiciary Committee have already called it “pure fraud and highway robbery”, arguing “No one can be both plaintiff and defendant in the same case.”
Donald Sherman, the president of government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it was “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.” And MS Now’s Ari Melber said it was “worse than Watergate.”
3. Blanche won’t rule out violent rioters getting payouts
Blanche was helpfully scheduled to testify before the Senate appropriations subcommittee today – which gave Senators a lengthy stretch of time to drill into the President’s new slush fund. He repeatedly refused to rule out violent rioters being considered for payouts.
Here’s a clip of him doing a dance with Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, during which he refused to entertain the idea of even “encouraging” the commissioners to included “didn’t beat the crap out of a police officer” in their guidelines for who gets cash.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen brought up a case of a J6 rioter who went on to get caught molesting children, and used the expectation that he would be paid $10 million as a “victim of weaponisation” to buy the silence of one of his victims.
Blanche accused Van Hollen of lying, to which Van Hollen was unimpressed. So much so that he went away and got the transcripts of the subject’s arrest interviews.
Then there was this testy exchange, where Blanche had clearly become irritated by people pointing out that prior to his current role, he was Donald Trump’s personal attorney.
4. Blanche was Trump’s ‘consigliere’ with Ghislaine Maxwell
Blanche got increasingly shirty when Senators asked him about the curious case of his going to visit Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, and her getting moved to a cushier facility a few days later.
He seemed performatively aghast when Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island suggested Trump had sent him to talk to Maxwell.
“Do you think President Trump called and asked me to go interview Ghislaine Maxwell?” Blanche said.
Senator Reed deadpanned: “Yes I do, frankly. Because the deal was in. He needed someone he could rely on…”
He went on: “This whole hearing I think is exposing something that to me is very frightening. You’re a very gifted lawyer. But in my view you have very little faith to the constitution or the people of America. And you’re the president’s consigliere.”
5. JD Rants
Later, it was the turn of JD Vance to take to the press room and deliver a briefing in Karoline Leavitt’s absence. And boy did he tie himself in knots to justify the “slush fund”.
In response to a plant question about the “political persecution of J6’ers” who were “literally tortured in cages”, asked by an activist representing Lindell TV, a propaganda streaming service run by pillow magnate-turned defamer and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, Vance came up with a string of increasingly lurid hypotheticals to try and justify people who tried to mount a coup and attacked law enforcement officers being given payouts by the federal government.
“We don’t in the United States say that everybody who is accused of a crime is automatically guilty in the court of public opinion,” he said. Which is weird because the January 6th rioters weren’t convicted in a court of public opinion, they were convicted and found guilty in courts of law. Which is why Trump had to pardon them.
He went on to astonishingly undermine the entire US criminal justice system as “kangaroo courts”.
“You’ve actually got to look at this stuff and figure out ‘what were they accused of’. Maybe they did something bad, even, but what they were accused of was way worse than what they actually did. Maybe they had their entire lives ruined in a totally disproportionate way.”
He added: “Let’s say a person is accused, let’s just say hypothetically, a person who is accused of doing something that they never actually did that they got a kangaroo court that they had a judge who mistreated them. I think that we should look at those things case-by-case. We’re not making commitments to give anybody money. We’re just making commitments to look at things case-by-case.”
Vance went on to argue that there are loads of organisations set up to challenge disproportionate sentencing (which there are, but not one of them is funded to the tune of $1.7 billion, nor do they have pardon powers). Vance went on: “You know who never ever gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to that disproportionate sentencing? Is people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protest.”
6. JD Bants
In answer to a question from the Daily Caller, a right-wing website founded by Tucker Carlson, Vance indicated the Justice Department would investigate Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, which appeared to be based on a ludicrous, patently racist conspiracy theory about her.
We’ve covered this baseless, logically incoherent accusation in the past, so I don’t intend to type it out again. But I think it’s worth noting that the Vice President of the United States is happy to play along with a racist conspiracy theory in order to attack his political opponents.
He was also briefly asked about the far-right march that took place in London over the weekend. His message to people in Britain who spout the racist “great replacement” theory? “I’d encourage them to just keep on going. It’s okay to want to defend your culture.”
7. JD Pants (on fire)
Vance was asked by the Independent how he could justify claiming to be cleaning up corruption in American politics when Donald Trump keeps talking up stocks that he owns, then selling them and enriching himself.
“The president doesn’t sit at the oval office on his computer, on his robinhood account, buying and selling stocks,” Vance retorted. “That’s absurd. He’s not making the stock trades himself.”
Quite apart from anything else, obviously Donald Trump wouldn’t know how to buy or sell stocks on his own computer, whether it was corrupt or not. But look carefully at what he’s denying – or crucially not denying. He’s denying Trump pressed the button himself, but not that Trump told someone else to do so.
8. Trump finally picks a side in Texas
Trump finally picked a side in the Republican Senate Primary in Texas – backing “true MAGA warrior” Ken Paxton over sitting Senator John Cornyn. Paxton and Cornyn advanced to a May 26 runoff after finishing as the top vote-getters in a March 3 primary in which no candidate won a majority. Early voting started Monday and continues through Friday. He also picked and endorsed a challenger to Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie in Tuesday’s primary. Massie’s push to release the Epstein files and his vocal opposition to the Iran war have grated on Trump, whose support for Ed Gallrein is making this reelection campaign Massie’s most challenging yet. Although the four-term Cornyn has backed Trump’s agenda in Washington, Paxton pitched himself as a political warrior for the Make America Great Again movement. Trump’s endorsement puts him at odds with his party’s establishment, which is convinced that Cornyn is the better candidate for November’s general election. The Republican nominee will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.