Jul.16

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Accountability Watch

Donald Trump and his cronies are famous for avoiding accountability for their many offenses and crimes. For starters, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies and got: (1) no fine and (2) no prison time. Anyone else so convicted would have gotten at least a fine. Not Trump. The same is true of his cronies. There is no accountability at all. But maybe we are seeing the first signs that there could be some down the line. Consider these cases.

• Trump: Trump was held liable by a jury for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a New York department store. He appealed the decision and lost. Then he was ordered to pay and appealed again. He lost again. So it was time to pay the piper. Normally, he would just refuse and that would set off another 3 or more years fighting in the courts. But a peculiarity of the appeals process stymied him. To file an appeal in New York State, the defendant has to put the amount of the judgment in an escrow account with the court, to prevent him from not paying and saying: "So sue me." When all the appeals ran out, the judge released the $5.6 million (judgment plus interest) to Carroll. She actually has the money now.
  
  However, before breathing a sigh of relief, she has to deal with a couple of things. First, she has to pay her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. In a contingency case, the lawyer gets nothing if he or she loses the case, so the payout is big on a win, commonly 30-40% depending on whether there were appeals and if so, how many. Second, judgments for punitive damages are generally considered taxable income. So after paying Kaplan, Carroll might have $3.4 million left. The federal tax bill is probably about $1.2 million, leaving $2.2 million, Depending on her legal residence, Carroll might also owe state tax. But she probably gets to keep something on the order of $2 million.
  
  But this is only for starters. In Carroll's other defamation suit against Trump, the jury awarded Caroll $83 million—this case was for an earlier incident than the one above, but came after the $5 million award, so this jury clearly thought a harsher penalty was necessary. That judgment is still on appeal. If the courts uphold that one, it will really be payday for Carroll and Kaplan.
  
  
• Elon Musk: In 2025, there was a bitterly contested state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Elon Musk decided to help the Republican candidate. He tried to goose turnout by handing out $1 million checks to selected voters. He thought that would be cool and get people to vote. Tech bros don't ask whether some action is legal. They just move fast and break things.
  
  The Wisconsin Board of Elections has other ideas about that. They are old fuddie duddies and feel that buying votes, is like, illegal, since there is strong photographic evidence of it as well:
  
  
  
  The Board voted 5-1 to refer the matter to the D.A. of Brown County, where the event took place. The recommended charges are bribery and running an illegal lottery. The D.A. hasn't commented on the case yet. If Musk is indicted, there are two things to note. First, the case will eventually land in the Wisconsin Supreme Court—of which Musk's preferred candidate is not a member because that candidate was crushed in the election. Second, because this is a state case, not a federal case, Donald Trump cannot pardon Musk. It is also possible that Musk's action violated federal law as well, and a future Democratic fuddie-duddy AG could charge him with federal crimes as well.
  
  
• Brendan Carr: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has a history of carrying Trump's water on mergers, threats and more. One thing he delivered on was the merger of Paramount, which is run by David Ellison, the son of Trump's crony Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle. There was a big party at the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to celebrate the merger. Carr got a free ticket to a private skybox to watch it, along with Ellison and other Paramount executives. Those tickets go for $125,000. Receiving kickbacks for shepherding deals is one of those little federal no-nos. This wouldn't be the first time Paramount gave a big gift to Carr and other FCC board members.
  
  Virginia Canter, a government lawyer who worked for four presidents, said: "This is shocking. Pretty disturbing, that's what I would say. I just don't understand what they were thinking." Virginia, maybe they were thinking there is a Santa Claus. At the very least, they were thinking they wouldn't get caught. Having this corruption be thoroughly documented by a report from ProPublica will make it easier for a subsequent AG to go after him.

If the next president is a Democrat, there could be 4 years of investigations of corruption, up and down the line. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit out there. (V)