A federal judge just found the President’s own lawsuit was filed in bad faith. He’s appealing anyway. There’s exactly one reason a man appeals a ruling about money he’s already given up.
I'd temper it slightly...the reason this one might land isn't the outrage...it's the simplicity.
"He sued himself for ten billion dollars" doesn't require anyone to care about norms or process. It's just a guy...taking money out of a register...he's STANDING BEHIND.
That's a story people can get without permission from anyone.
I meant to thank you for your work and it’s an honor but necessary to promote you until the mainstream media stops saying what he does is “astonishing “. Makes me sick that they would ever expect anything from him to help anyone but himself.
Brad...thank you...and the "astonishing" thing...is EXACTLY right.
After a decade...surprise is a CHOICE. And...it's a USEFUL one...because every time something gets called astonishing...the clock resets and nobody has to say the word PATTERN.
This isn't shocking. It's CONSISTENT. That's the harder sentence to write...and it's the true one.
Grateful you're here...and...grateful you share it.
The grift of this Orange Shitstain knows no bounds.. he’s a cockroach.. shine a light on his grifting and he’ll try another angle.. he WILL keep doing this until he succeeds.. we MUST stop him and his sycophants in the midterms..
Morgan...there's something about seeing him called the "Orange Shitstain"...on a Friday evening...that sets the perfect mood for the weekend...and makes me smile.
You've described the actual PATTERN better than I did.
He gave up the fund the SECOND the light hit it...and kept the immunity...which NOBODY was looking at. That's not retreat. That's the SAME play...one room over.
Which is why the pressure has to be SPECIFIC. General outrage...he can wait out. A senator asking one narrow question on the RECORD...he can't.
Jack, that slush fund was just the outrageous window dressing to distract from the one thing that Trump really wants…immunity FOREVER for anyone in that family! Given that the Trump family has a history of tax fraud, the idea that they would immune from prosecution in perpetuity, for something that seems to be almost part of the DNA of anyone named Trump is beyond enraging…ENOUGH!! If the this isn’t blocked I will have lost all hope for this country ever returning to what “she” was before that “golden” escalator gave us the hell that is a government under Trump!
Jack, I think I’ve “hit the wall” that runners often refer to in marathon runs…I am so disgusted by this entire regime and feeling so angry and hopeless! Thanks for your steady wisdom and the support your posts provide!
That's STILL holding on...and you do NOT have to do it gracefully.
One thing that might loosen your grip a little: the shield isn't forever. It covers returns filed BEFORE the settlement date. It's retroactive...not perpetual...which is bad enough...for DAMN sure...but...it is not the permanent family pardon it's being described as.
Blanche said as much on the record...when Schiff pushed him on THIS year's filings.
Also..it's being fought. A federal judge already called the suit bad faith. Two Republicans stalled the nomination over this exact clause. That's not nothing...that's the BOUNDARY sitting closer than ANYONE expected.
Rest when you need to. The marathon metaphor's right...and nobody finishes one by sprinting the middle!
Thanks Jack…that info is big relief, as thinking it was a forever “get out of jail free card” was really wearing me down to the nibs! I’m trying so hard to not totally obsess over this…there’s so much more of in the world to appreciate and enjoy, as our summer begins to wind down…have a wonderful weekend, and thank you!
I contacted my senators via their websites, who both are on the Judiciary Committee, and asked the question: Does the audit immunity provision still stand, yes or no?
Dennis...they did...and harder than my piece implied. Worth correcting!
Durbin pressed him directly on the audit immunity; Blanche's defense...was that releases like that are typical...and done regularly.
Schiff walked him through a hypothetical...about THIS year's returns.
Coons...said flatly...that he wasn't convinced the thing was actually DEAD...and then pursued it in writing afterward...including a follow-up on WHY the release language mentions OTHER agencies...if it supposedly binds ONLY the IRS.
Then...Durbin's written questions... asked whether it was appropriate for Blanche to sign a document granting immunity...to his OWN former client.
So...the substance came from DEMOCRATS.
What Cornyn added was leverage; he's a Republican vote the committee actually NEEDS, which is why the vote got PULLED...instead of just being uncomfortable.
I was wondering about the immunity. I was also wondering about just WHY Blanche’s superiors were not instructing him to say the fund was dead on paper. I’ve been seeing people float ritual humiliation but that didn’t feel quite right (then again, I tend to want things to make sense and this clown is NOT about that)….. Would there be some way to resurrect the whole thing if they omitted that little detail? The immunity has stunk to high heaven since this whole thing came out. It is beyond the pale. Egregious to the tenth power.
Thank you Jack for calling this out for what it is! You better believe I’m restacking. 👍
File the date: the fund died in public, in May. Note what didn’t die with it: a clause that shields a president and his family from audits on returns filed before this year. The distinction is not a footnote. It is the entire operation. A regime that wants to extract a permanent privilege does not announce the privilege. It announces the sacrifice it is willing to make, loudly, and lets the sacrifice absorb all the attention the privilege needed to avoid.
Jack is correct that the sequence is the story. A president sued the agency he runs, over a leak that happened under his own first-term authority, for ten times the money any comparable case has produced. A judge noted, in April, that he was effectively negotiating with himself. He withdrew the suit in May. Within days, a fund appeared, structured as compensation, and an immunity provision appeared alongside it, structured as nothing in particular. One of these was designed to be found. The other was designed to survive being found.
Note which body did the finding. Not a reporter. Not an opposition party. Thirty-five former federal judges petitioned to reopen the matter, and the judge assigned to it concluded that the underlying suit had been filed in bad faith, for an improper purpose, and that the settlement had been used to launder legitimacy onto an arrangement built to enrich people connected to the president. She sanctioned the attorneys. She referred them to their bar associations. She took the word “settlement” away from the parties entirely, barring them from using it. This is not commentary. This is a federal judge’s finding of fact.
Jack is correct that the appeal is the tell. Nobody spends legal resources defending a fund they have already surrendered in public. The rational reading is that the appeal exists to preserve the ruling’s vulnerability to challenge, and with it, the audit shield that the fund’s death was never supposed to touch. The confirmation hearing supplied the confirmation: under questioning, with the immunity clause on a poster board in front of him, the attorney general nominee acknowledged the agreement remains an enforceable contract.
Watch the vote that didn’t happen. Two senators from the president’s own party could not commit to advancing that nominee, not over ideology, but over this specific provision. That is a data point about where the actual boundary sits, and it sits closer than most people assume. The fund was the visible transaction. The audit shield was the invisible one. Note which one survived the exposure, and ask what that tells you about what these operations are actually built to protect.
One line from his own legal team’s statement deserves to be read twice. They said the president is “holding those who wrong America and Americans accountable,” and named the wrong as an IRS leak from his first term. Note the structure of that sentence. The agency he blames is the one he now runs. The wrong he avenges happened under his own prior authority. He is not describing accountability. He is describing a closed loop, in which the injured party, the investigator, and the beneficiary are the same man, and the public is asked not to notice the loop closing.
Jane...here's something that strengthens your case...from the written follow-ups after the hearing:
The release language reaches past the IRS to OTHER agencies.
Coons flagged it and asked how that squares with the claim that it binds ONLY Treasury.
The answer he got...was that the document speaks for itself. Not "standard." Not "typical." Just..."read it."
The one place I stay careful is designed. I think you're right. I can't prove intent...and the moment I assert it...the argument becomes about my MIND-READING... instead of their paperwork. The PAPERWORK is stronger.
I never once forgot about the IRS tax exempt ploy. One thing DJT hates worse than America is paying taxes. Who else with millions of dollars pays $750 in taxes? The journalist are paid to ignore those facts that the Trump Mob want quashed.
Thanks Jack for reminding all the true settlement.
I still think that louse is going to be nominated, Jack, I don't have Any faith in this Reputation Regime. TGIF to you and All of your readers. Ya'll have a great weekend and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Out of the two, I would prefer the slush fund killed right now. Once that money is gone, it’s gone. But once Jabba is out of power, immunity can be overridden.
Hate to say this, but if t is able to install his sycophants; t gets a "out of jail free card" - his idolaters will give him immunity for "posterity's" sake.
I’ve made a reminder to call Rick Scott and Ashley Moody about this on Monday. I called both of them today leaving VMs asking about the alien terrorist removal court.
I know they’re not listening to me but I’ve stayed registered as a Republican to vote in primaries against the most maga candidates. I have got a neighbor and a friend, both registered republicans, making calls with me.
I reached out to a former neighbor who moved to Arizona last year after you pointed out to forward your piece on Andy Biggs to anyone we know in Arizona. She wasn’t aware of those facts.
Please keep providing us with this kind of information. Please keep pointing my outrage in the right direction. I’m listening. I’m acting. I’m bringing at least a couple people with me. I can’t be the only one.
Thanks for this! You’d think more journalists would be all over it. I guess fraud and grift fatigue is sweeping the nation.
Lori...you're welcome.
I am very disappointed with what I perceive as the declining aggressiveness of many mainstream journalists. Fear? I don't know for sure.
What I do know...is that I'm too pissed off to hold my tongue.
-Jack
Exactly what I am feeling…”hit the wall,” as runners say…
I am so happy that he is asking for something so outrageous that it might make a dent in the MAGAt brain silverfoil.
Brad...wouldn't that be something.
I'd temper it slightly...the reason this one might land isn't the outrage...it's the simplicity.
"He sued himself for ten billion dollars" doesn't require anyone to care about norms or process. It's just a guy...taking money out of a register...he's STANDING BEHIND.
That's a story people can get without permission from anyone.
Glad you're here!
-Jack
dyed in the wool maga's have been robbed blind and if they ever realize this they would not admit to it and thus the perpetuation.
Agree
It is their tithing.
I meant to thank you for your work and it’s an honor but necessary to promote you until the mainstream media stops saying what he does is “astonishing “. Makes me sick that they would ever expect anything from him to help anyone but himself.
Brad...thank you...and the "astonishing" thing...is EXACTLY right.
After a decade...surprise is a CHOICE. And...it's a USEFUL one...because every time something gets called astonishing...the clock resets and nobody has to say the word PATTERN.
This isn't shocking. It's CONSISTENT. That's the harder sentence to write...and it's the true one.
Grateful you're here...and...grateful you share it.
-Jack
trump was gleeful when he announced the suit. It started as an administrative hearing. I do not remember why it ended up in the courts.
The grift of this Orange Shitstain knows no bounds.. he’s a cockroach.. shine a light on his grifting and he’ll try another angle.. he WILL keep doing this until he succeeds.. we MUST stop him and his sycophants in the midterms..
Morgan...there's something about seeing him called the "Orange Shitstain"...on a Friday evening...that sets the perfect mood for the weekend...and makes me smile.
You've described the actual PATTERN better than I did.
He gave up the fund the SECOND the light hit it...and kept the immunity...which NOBODY was looking at. That's not retreat. That's the SAME play...one room over.
Which is why the pressure has to be SPECIFIC. General outrage...he can wait out. A senator asking one narrow question on the RECORD...he can't.
And...yes. November!
-Jack
Thank you my friend.. yeah I’ve been calling douchefuck an Orange Shitstain forever from his first term 🤮
So sick of the criminals running this country
Lynn...ditto!
-Jack
Jack, that slush fund was just the outrageous window dressing to distract from the one thing that Trump really wants…immunity FOREVER for anyone in that family! Given that the Trump family has a history of tax fraud, the idea that they would immune from prosecution in perpetuity, for something that seems to be almost part of the DNA of anyone named Trump is beyond enraging…ENOUGH!! If the this isn’t blocked I will have lost all hope for this country ever returning to what “she” was before that “golden” escalator gave us the hell that is a government under Trump!
Jack, I think I’ve “hit the wall” that runners often refer to in marathon runs…I am so disgusted by this entire regime and feeling so angry and hopeless! Thanks for your steady wisdom and the support your posts provide!
Holding on by my fingernails at the moment!
Christie
Christie...fingernails count.
That's STILL holding on...and you do NOT have to do it gracefully.
One thing that might loosen your grip a little: the shield isn't forever. It covers returns filed BEFORE the settlement date. It's retroactive...not perpetual...which is bad enough...for DAMN sure...but...it is not the permanent family pardon it's being described as.
Blanche said as much on the record...when Schiff pushed him on THIS year's filings.
Also..it's being fought. A federal judge already called the suit bad faith. Two Republicans stalled the nomination over this exact clause. That's not nothing...that's the BOUNDARY sitting closer than ANYONE expected.
Rest when you need to. The marathon metaphor's right...and nobody finishes one by sprinting the middle!
-Jack
Thanks Jack…that info is big relief, as thinking it was a forever “get out of jail free card” was really wearing me down to the nibs! I’m trying so hard to not totally obsess over this…there’s so much more of in the world to appreciate and enjoy, as our summer begins to wind down…have a wonderful weekend, and thank you!
Christie
I contacted my senators via their websites, who both are on the Judiciary Committee, and asked the question: Does the audit immunity provision still stand, yes or no?
I’ll wait and see if they respond back or not.
At least I know I’m doing my part.
#HOLDFAST #OUTLAST #STANDFAST
“There’s no sentence I can write that makes this dumber than it alrighty is.”
I love your style! 🤣🤣🤣
Did no Democratic senators raise the IRS immunity issue in their questioning of Blanche during his Attorney General hearing?
Dennis...they did...and harder than my piece implied. Worth correcting!
Durbin pressed him directly on the audit immunity; Blanche's defense...was that releases like that are typical...and done regularly.
Schiff walked him through a hypothetical...about THIS year's returns.
Coons...said flatly...that he wasn't convinced the thing was actually DEAD...and then pursued it in writing afterward...including a follow-up on WHY the release language mentions OTHER agencies...if it supposedly binds ONLY the IRS.
Then...Durbin's written questions... asked whether it was appropriate for Blanche to sign a document granting immunity...to his OWN former client.
So...the substance came from DEMOCRATS.
What Cornyn added was leverage; he's a Republican vote the committee actually NEEDS, which is why the vote got PULLED...instead of just being uncomfortable.
Thanks for the question, Dennis Rogers!
-Jack
Holy frickin’ sh**!! It never ends does it?
I was wondering about the immunity. I was also wondering about just WHY Blanche’s superiors were not instructing him to say the fund was dead on paper. I’ve been seeing people float ritual humiliation but that didn’t feel quite right (then again, I tend to want things to make sense and this clown is NOT about that)….. Would there be some way to resurrect the whole thing if they omitted that little detail? The immunity has stunk to high heaven since this whole thing came out. It is beyond the pale. Egregious to the tenth power.
Thank you Jack for calling this out for what it is! You better believe I’m restacking. 👍
They already got around it.
File the date: the fund died in public, in May. Note what didn’t die with it: a clause that shields a president and his family from audits on returns filed before this year. The distinction is not a footnote. It is the entire operation. A regime that wants to extract a permanent privilege does not announce the privilege. It announces the sacrifice it is willing to make, loudly, and lets the sacrifice absorb all the attention the privilege needed to avoid.
Jack is correct that the sequence is the story. A president sued the agency he runs, over a leak that happened under his own first-term authority, for ten times the money any comparable case has produced. A judge noted, in April, that he was effectively negotiating with himself. He withdrew the suit in May. Within days, a fund appeared, structured as compensation, and an immunity provision appeared alongside it, structured as nothing in particular. One of these was designed to be found. The other was designed to survive being found.
Note which body did the finding. Not a reporter. Not an opposition party. Thirty-five former federal judges petitioned to reopen the matter, and the judge assigned to it concluded that the underlying suit had been filed in bad faith, for an improper purpose, and that the settlement had been used to launder legitimacy onto an arrangement built to enrich people connected to the president. She sanctioned the attorneys. She referred them to their bar associations. She took the word “settlement” away from the parties entirely, barring them from using it. This is not commentary. This is a federal judge’s finding of fact.
Jack is correct that the appeal is the tell. Nobody spends legal resources defending a fund they have already surrendered in public. The rational reading is that the appeal exists to preserve the ruling’s vulnerability to challenge, and with it, the audit shield that the fund’s death was never supposed to touch. The confirmation hearing supplied the confirmation: under questioning, with the immunity clause on a poster board in front of him, the attorney general nominee acknowledged the agreement remains an enforceable contract.
Watch the vote that didn’t happen. Two senators from the president’s own party could not commit to advancing that nominee, not over ideology, but over this specific provision. That is a data point about where the actual boundary sits, and it sits closer than most people assume. The fund was the visible transaction. The audit shield was the invisible one. Note which one survived the exposure, and ask what that tells you about what these operations are actually built to protect.
One line from his own legal team’s statement deserves to be read twice. They said the president is “holding those who wrong America and Americans accountable,” and named the wrong as an IRS leak from his first term. Note the structure of that sentence. The agency he blames is the one he now runs. The wrong he avenges happened under his own prior authority. He is not describing accountability. He is describing a closed loop, in which the injured party, the investigator, and the beneficiary are the same man, and the public is asked not to notice the loop closing.
#HOLDFAST
Jane...here's something that strengthens your case...from the written follow-ups after the hearing:
The release language reaches past the IRS to OTHER agencies.
Coons flagged it and asked how that squares with the claim that it binds ONLY Treasury.
The answer he got...was that the document speaks for itself. Not "standard." Not "typical." Just..."read it."
The one place I stay careful is designed. I think you're right. I can't prove intent...and the moment I assert it...the argument becomes about my MIND-READING... instead of their paperwork. The PAPERWORK is stronger.
Keep writing these, Jane.
#HOLDFAST
-Jack
The immunity REALKY needs to be undone. But of course we all know that!
I never once forgot about the IRS tax exempt ploy. One thing DJT hates worse than America is paying taxes. Who else with millions of dollars pays $750 in taxes? The journalist are paid to ignore those facts that the Trump Mob want quashed.
Thanks Jack for reminding all the true settlement.
#HoldFast
Bravo!! Thank you for the clarity and calling this out!!
I still think that louse is going to be nominated, Jack, I don't have Any faith in this Reputation Regime. TGIF to you and All of your readers. Ya'll have a great weekend and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Out of the two, I would prefer the slush fund killed right now. Once that money is gone, it’s gone. But once Jabba is out of power, immunity can be overridden.
Hate to say this, but if t is able to install his sycophants; t gets a "out of jail free card" - his idolaters will give him immunity for "posterity's" sake.
I’ve made a reminder to call Rick Scott and Ashley Moody about this on Monday. I called both of them today leaving VMs asking about the alien terrorist removal court.
I know they’re not listening to me but I’ve stayed registered as a Republican to vote in primaries against the most maga candidates. I have got a neighbor and a friend, both registered republicans, making calls with me.
I reached out to a former neighbor who moved to Arizona last year after you pointed out to forward your piece on Andy Biggs to anyone we know in Arizona. She wasn’t aware of those facts.
Please keep providing us with this kind of information. Please keep pointing my outrage in the right direction. I’m listening. I’m acting. I’m bringing at least a couple people with me. I can’t be the only one.