The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER 

BY now we’re accustomed to almost unimaginably outrageous initiatives from the current Donald Trump administration in Washington DC, and the week just past brought some new ones to the headlines, while revealing more shocking details about some other ideas the president is reportedly pondering.

It’s hard to know where to begin, as is usual with this chaotic administration. A good place to start is with a Trump tactical move that has become increasingly familiar. His plan is apparently to unveil a truly astounding idea and couple it directly or indirectly with a more subtle one that benefits him financially.

This was apparently the tactic behind the Department of Justice revealing the creation of a $1,776,000,000 fund which could be used, among other things, to compensate Trump allies who had been prosecuted under prior administrations. Potential beneficiaries would include the thousands who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump has long felt that he and many of his associates have been victims of politically-motivated persecution and prosecution by federal and state courts. And he and his allies have indeed found themselves frequently defending themselves against a whole multitude of charges, often involving financial grift and graft and political maneuvering for electoral advantage.

He does seem to overlook the possibility that his actions have often been unprecedently illegal, and thus naturally subject to prosecution.

The president seemingly has discovered that American law is full of loopholes that exist because no one has taken the trouble to discover and exploit them. These loopholes are gaps in the law that no Congress has made illegal because no previous administration has behaved as has this one. Trump’s view appears to be that if corrupt or unethical conduct is not explicitly illegal in the US code of laws, it’s therefore permissible and lawful.

A conservative, strict-constructionist US Supreme Court has often – but not always – implicitly supported this thesis in its decisions. This court is likely to retain its 6-3 conservative majority for the intermediate future.

The American Congress will have to await different leadership and a post-Trump political environment to enact legislation that will be designed to close many of the loopholes that have become Trump’s opportunities.

The $1.776 billion fund served as a powerful lightning rod to attract outspoken opposition from virtually every Democrat and several influential Republican members of Congress, and was relatively quickly withdrawn.

But lurking behind this overt proposal to enable Trump to financially reward the January 6 participants at the American capitol building was a bit of attempted graft that far exceeds the norm from even a current administration that some argue is the most openly, unabashedly, and profoundly corrupt one in modern American history.

The acting American Attorney General is Todd Blanche, a 51-year-old lawyer who was first brought into the Trump legal orbit as the president assembled a team to defend himself in a case brought against him in connection with ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Remember that case?  It was adjudicated just three years ago during the Joe Biden administration.

There were reports from the BBC and other news sources that Blanche left a lucrative position as a partner at a Wall Street law firm, changed his political affiliation to became a Republican, and moved to Florida to take on the biggest client of his career - Trump.

It seems that Trump and Blanche got on quite well, and Blanche was confirmed by the US Senate 15 months ago to serve as Deputy Attorney General. After Trump finally fired Pam Bondi from the top Justice job in April, Blanche took over on an acting basis as America’s top law enforcement official.

And it was Blanche who signed an order last week giving Trump, his family and his businesses potentially lucrative protection from investigations by the American tax collecting agency, the Internal Revenue Service. During an appearance before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Blanche reaffirmed this order that the New York Times has estimated could save Trump and his family over $100 million in taxes going forward.

Such an order could essentially shield Trump and his many family businesses from any federal oversight indefinitely. Normally, the IRS conducts tax investigations on behalf of the US government. Blanche’s order would mean Congress would have to authorize a special investigative unit to pursue alleged misdeeds by the Trump operation in the future.

Imagine the publicity that might cause.  t’s easy to foresee Trump screaming “witch hunt” all over again, and to hear the outcry from his millions of supporters.

But for now, politicians from both parties are speaking out against Blanche’s move.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina, expressed frustration over the IRS immunity deal. “We’re talking about family members that have had almost a doubling of their net worth over the last year and a half. How can you not at least have them be subject to the same thing that I’m subjected to as is every one of you?” Tillis asked reporters on Tuesday.

Tillis, it must be admitted, can feel free to speak out on such matters.  He is retiring from the Senate, so Trump cannot hurt him very much politically.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a long-time Connecticut Democrat, said the IRS agreement proved that Blanche was continuing to act as Trump’s personal lawyer, and she cited “nearly $10 million” that he was paid by a Trump-allied group for his legal work on behalf of Trump on the Daniels hush money case between 2023 and 2024.

“My God, do you not find there’s any conflict of interest in what you are doing here as the acting attorney general of the United States?” she asked. Blanche said there was none.

We’ll see how this all plays out. Will Congress actually do anything to frustrate Trump and Blanche in this matter? They don’t have too much time to do so, since the House of Representatives is due to leave Washington on August 1 for a month, and the Senate will depart on August 10 for its own month-long recess.

Commentators and pundits have been wringing their hands for months about the unwillingness of congressional Republicans to stand up to Trump on virtually anything, from his seemingly illegal pursuit of an extraordinarily expensive and ultimately pointless war against Iran to his persistent nominations of blatantly unqualified political allies to key positions in the US government that directly impact the nation’s security.

Public opinion polls show Trump’s popularity steadily declining. He is apparently becoming such a drag on the Republican brand that there is a slight uptick in reports that the Democrats, despite their lingering unpopularity after the ignominious collapse of the Biden administration and botched effort to save the 2024 election, might actually recapture control of the US Senate in November.

Such an outcome has been, and remains in many quarters, unthinkable. Most importantly, Trump is not on the ballot this November. His personal unpopularity will not necessarily lead voters to overturn the whole party.

And the Democrats have remained consistent in their inability to either transition from a Senate leadership hierarchy defined mostly by longevity and gerontocracy or to develop a coherent policy platform that can engage voters.

It’s perhaps enough, still, to run on a platform largely, if implicitly, defined by the simple declaration that “the Democrats are not the party of Donald Trump.” That did work in 2020, after all. And there were strong Democratic gains in the Congressional elections of 2018 and lesser wins in 2022.

But the electoral math in the Senate requires more than not being Trump’s party. The GOP is defending relatively few truly unsafe Senate seats. It would take a truly blue wave in November to flip the four seats needed to restore the Dems to a Senate majority.

Trump doesn’t behave as though he cares if his policies imperil Republican legislative control. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe his true objective is different. Maybe, as some are now speculating, he’s looking to a future as an ex-president who retains absolute control of one of America’s two political parties.