Dem
47
GOP
53
Whack-a-mole is actually a pretty good metaphor for the corruption of the Trump administration. Not only does it apply to the slush fund, in particular, but also to the many and varied ways in which Trump and his underlings have endeavored to use the powers of the federal government to punish perceived enemies. There has been a particularly noticeable run of stories on that front in the last few days.
We will start with the Department of Energy. You would think it would be hard to weaponize that Department against Trump's enemies, unless it involved nuking blue states, since overseeing nukes is the main thing the DoE does. However, Secretary Chris Wright found a way, canceling $82.1 million in clean-energy projects in New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota and Colorado.
The Trump administration loathes clean energy, of course, in part because Trump has personal animosity toward wind power, and in part because this White House was bought and paid for by Big Oil. If the DoE had mixed in one or two red states on the list or cancellations, then it might have gotten away with it. However, it could not be more obvious that it was blue states that were being targeted, even though Wright insisted, during testimony before the House, that was not the case. Someone might want to tell him that if you lie while testifying before Congress, that's perjury. In any case, this wasn't even the first time that the DoE pulled this particular stunt. The previous cancellations were reversed by a judge, and the cancellations in New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Colorado were just reversed by Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Amit Mehta.
Moving along, the DHS is a much more predictable source of weaponization. Kids in Need of Defense, Ayuda, and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights are all nonprofit groups, located in Washington, DC, that provide legal services and other assistance to unaccompanied migrant children. Late last week, DHS officials showed up at the headquarters of all three groups in order to conduct "investigations." DHS refused to say what they were investigating, and they had no warrant or other legal documentation. So, the leadership of each of the three groups told DHS to get lost, and they did. Nobody knows, as yet, what was going on here. Will DHS eventually be back with warrants (possibly dubious "administrative warrants")? Or was this just general intimidation, perhaps on the orders of one Stephen Miller? Nobody is saying, at least not yet.
Of course, the national headquarters for government weaponization is the Department of "Justice," which has now spent 1½ years under the "leadership" of Trump lackeys Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche. On Thursday, the FBI, backed by warrants, raided one of the offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC), which is a progressive group that works to register voters. The claim made by the FBI is that the OOC is suborning fraud. No proof of this one-size-fits-all claim has been publicly offered, and we're actually a little surprised that the Bureau found a judge to sign off on the warrant. Maybe it was Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Matthew W. McFarland; he's been known to issue forth with partisan rulings on occasion.
It's not too hard to figure out what's going on here. And it's even easier to figure out when you know that the FBI conducted a similar raid in Georgia back in February. FBI Director Kash Patel isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he knows that: (1) the midterms are not looking good for the GOP and (2) the Senate races in Ohio and Georgia could prove key to partisan control of the upper chamber. Put another way, don't be too surprised if you read about FBI raids in Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina or Texas.
And finally, let's move on to the big "weaponization" news from yesterday. The U.S. Attorney for Sacramento has commenced an investigation of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and his wife, Siebel Newsom. The DoJ claims that Mrs. Newsom's tax filings are suspicious, and that she may have committed fraud and/or tax evasion.
We will allow for the slight possibility that the charges against the Newsoms are legitimate, since a grand jury apparently did sign off on the investigation, and since a few corrupt people in Newsom's orbit (e.g., his former chief of staff, Dana Williamson) have been popped for similar offenses. That said, the Newsoms have been under a giant microscope for a decade. They know that, and they also know the microscope is going to get much bigger when he announces his inevitable presidential run. Oh, and everyone who runs for president, except Trump, ends up releasing their tax returns. So, while it's possible the DoJ is on to something, we find it very hard to believe that is the case. Newsom may be a little oily, but he's not stupid. Plus, if it's his wife who cheated on HER taxes... well, that's not him.
We therefore assume, unless given very good evidence to the contrary, that this is just another example of the DoJ going after one of Trump's enemies. The question is whether Newsom is being targeted because: (1) Trump loathes him, (2) He is a leading Democratic presidential candidate for 2028 or (3) all of the above. Whatever the case may be, the administration is doing an excellent job of turning Newsom into a martyr, and affirming his status as the face of the Trump resistance.
And that concludes the latest "weaponization" news. When Dick Nixon so much as talked about this kind of stuff, Americans were scandalized. Trump & Co. are guilty of more abuses in a week than Nixon and his cronies perpetrated in a year, and yet it barely gets noticed. It really speaks to how much the current president has moved the Overton Window when it comes to corrupt behavior. (Z)