This is just the beginning of Trump’s corruption
Today, we saw the “largest single act of grand larceny in American history.” These are the words of Rep. Don Beyer from Virginia after he learned about Trump’s 10 billion dollar lawsuit settlement earlier this week. And now we know it was as bad as we imagined it to be, maybe even worse, because not only will Trump have a deep pot of money to pay past and future loyalists who carry out his dirty work, he also arranged for the IRS to be forever barred from pursuing any past tax claims against him, his sons, his businesses, and every trust and affiliated company tied to the family. Tax claims that could have cost him more than 100 million dollars. And the corruption goes even deeper. Because the settlement also included that the entire federal government will be forever barred from investigating him, his family, or his businesses. And the person who signed this “deal” was none other than the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer before he was handed the keys to the Justice Department.
The most egregious part of the settlement was in a one-page document that was quietly added on Tuesday and hidden among the other paperwork. In it, an addendum to the original nine-page settlement agreement filed Monday in the case of Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department broadened the scope of the deal far beyond what was disclosed to the public the day before. The addendum was not part of the original announcement. And the language included is almost unbelievable, coming from the Justice Department of the United States of America.
In the exact words used, the federal government is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims” against Trump, his sons, his businesses, and their affiliates, in “any matters currently pending or that could be pending” before “Defendants or other agencies or departments.” The part that is beyond troubling is that there are other agencies and departments added in. Not just the IRS or the Treasury. The language is broad enough to cover whatever a future Justice Department, run by Trump’s loyalists, decides to read into it. And the man who signed it, on a single page, on behalf of the United States of America, used to bill Donald Trump by the hour to defend him from federal prosecution.
Earlier today, Acting Attorney General Blanche was pressed in his Senate testimony on who exactly could apply for the payout part of the settlement; he refused to rule out January 6 defendants. He told Senator Susan Collins, in his own words, that the fund is “not limited in any way, scope or form to Jan. 6 or to Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims.” Senator Chris Van Hollen also spoke and named this for what it really is. This was not a settlement for the betterment of the American people. He told Blanche directly, “You are still acting as the president’s personal lawyer, not as acting attorney general.”
This really is an act of larceny. The largest one in our country’s history, being carried out by the President of the United States and his enablers. That is what we are dealing with. Trump personally protected from more than 100 million dollars in unpaid taxes. Trump personally protected, along with his entire family and every business he owns, from federal investigation of any kind. And 1.776 billion taxpayer dollars set aside to pay his political allies, including people who carried out violence at the Capitol, and enough money to financially reward the next Jan 6ers.
These are the dark days we knew were coming. The ones where they would start carrying out atrocities we couldn’t imagine. And they are going to get worse. We are in for six months that will decide the future of our country and the lives our children and grandchildren will live. That much is true. But these days are not lost days. We are seeing resistance get louder and stronger. Not fast enough. Absolutely not at the speed it should be, but it is there, and it is happening. His polling shows a deeply unpopular leader. And his enablers are breaking away from him more publicly.
We just saw it in the Senate. Last night, after seven failed attempts, the Senate voted 50 to 47 to advance Senator Tim Kaine’s war powers resolution to force Trump to end the Iran war. Four Republicans crossed the line. Susan Collins. Lisa Murkowski. Rand Paul. And, for the first time, Bill Cassidy. Cassidy lost his Republican primary over the weekend after Trump endorsed his opponent specifically to punish him. Cassidy walked into that chamber with nothing left to lose. He cast his vote and gave his statement: “While I support the administration’s efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, the White House and Pentagon have left Congress in the dark on Operation Epic Fury.”
The wall cracked. Not all the way. But it cracked. Three Republicans were absent for the vote: Cornyn, Tillis, and Tuberville. If all three vote no on final passage, the resolution dies on a tie. One more Republican yes vote and it passes. We are one vote away from Congress reasserting itself on a war that was launched without its authorization. We are one vote away.
That is what pressure does. Cassidy did not break ranks because he had a change of heart about Trump. He broke ranks because Trump cost him his career, and once a man has nothing left to lose, the calculation changes. That is the same calculation more and more Republicans are going to be forced to make in the coming months. Trump is loyal to no one. He has turned on every loyalist who ever crossed him by an inch, and every single one of them eventually figured out that the only thing they got for their loyalty was a knife in the back. The ones who are still standing in line behind him are betting that they will be the exception. They will not be.
And then there is the bunker. Today, Trump took reporters on a tour of the East Wing demolition site, the same East Wing his administration tore down in October after saying it wouldn’t. He stood above the construction pit, over the noise of drills and hammers, holding poster board mockups, and described the ballroom he is building as “a shield that protects everything that’s inside, everything that’s on top.” He called it “the safest building ever built, in my opinion.” Six stories deep underground. A military hospital. Research facilities. Meeting rooms. Impenetrable steel. Glass approximately four inches thick. The roof, he said, will have “massive drone capacity” and act as a “drone port” so it “protects all of Washington.” When ABC News asked the White House what a drone port actually means, the White House offered no additional explanation.
He can pretend this is all about the ballroom. We know the truth. He is building himself an underground fortress. He is fortifying himself against the consequences of what he is doing to us. This is what every authoritarian leader has done at the end. They build bunkers. It is the physical evidence that the leader knows the country he rules is no longer safe, because he is the one who made it that way.
Today brought out a lot of feelings for so many of us. Watching one man and his enablers pillage our government and our taxpayers’ dollars in such a pompous manner feels like a physical attack. And then to see so many of our fellow Americans not just okay with it, but to encourage it is a whole other level of betrayal. I have been feeling a very deep and increasing sadness for weeks now. Maybe months. And I want to say this as honestly and directly as I can, because I think a lot of you have been sad too. We have been carrying this. The destruction, the corruption, the cruelty, the daily betrayals of everything this country was supposed to stand for, the weight of watching it happen and knowing what it means. We have been heartbroken. We have been grieving. And even if we haven’t said it specifically until now, we have been in this place together, which is part of how we have made it this far. We have grieved together, and we have held hope for each other and better days together.
But sadness is not going to save us. Sadness is what they are counting on. They want us exhausted and paralyzed. They want us too tired to fight back, too overwhelmed to organize, too broken to vote. As long as we are sad, we are not waging the type of resistance this moment demands of us. As long as we are quiet, they win. That is the trap. And tonight, I am telling you, I am done being sad. I am angry, and I want you to be angry too.
Not violent or cruel. Not the way they are angry. But strategic, focused, and sustained against his regime. The kind of anger that names what is happening out loud, every time, in every room, to every person. The kind of anger that refuses to let any of this regime’s corruption continue.
Future generations need to see us beyond mad. They need to know that when authoritarianism came back into the open in our country, the adults in the room did not look away, and we rose to the occasion. Because anger moves us. So let me tell you what we do now. We get through the primary season. The beacon of resistance is not coming. The hero on a white horse is not going to step forward and save us. We are the beacon. We focus on what is in front of us. We make sure the strongest possible candidates are on the November ticket. We do not wait. We do not delegate this to someone else. We do the work ourselves.
We take back both chambers in November. Not just the House. Both. Because both is what makes everything else possible. With both chambers, we get real hearings, subpoenas, and accountability. We demand that Democrats stop being polite. They have one message that wins this, and they have not been using it. The corruption. The money. He took a possible 100 million dollars in taxes that he owed all of us. He set aside 1.776 billion of our money to pay his political allies. He tried to get taxpayers to fund another billion to build himself a ballroom, while so many cannot afford groceries. That is the message. That is the only message. People care about money even when they do not care about other people. Run on the corruption, theft, and what he is taking from working Americans every single day to enrich himself and protect himself from consequences. Match the moment. Remind Americans what 1.776 billion could do for them. How if Democrats take back Congress, that means slowing down Trump’s attack on our country and the Constitution, and it means more money going into taxpayers’ pockets and not Trump’s or his sycophants.
I’m not going to pretend that the next couple of years are going to get any easier, less stressful, or less dangerous. Because they are going to be hard. This is the fight of our lifetimes. To save our country. But if we do this, we are saving future generations from the same battle. We have made it this far, and Trump’s world is falling apart. He is not a well man. He is falling asleep in front of the camera. He is irrational, and his posts on social media show a man with impaired cognitive ability. The walls are closing in on him more and more each day. His downfall is building by the minute, but it is not going to be a straight line. The trajectory is what matters, and the outlook for his presidency is bleak. Four Republicans broke ranks on Iran. He will keep creating his own opposition. And every time he does, more of them will have nothing left to lose, and more of them will come over.
We just need to hold the line, get angrier, and stay angry, all the way to November. We must refuse to be tired. And we must remember that we are not alone. We are in this together. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: Tonight’s sunset reminded me that better days are still possible. They are still out there, waiting for us. It is easy right now to want to go numb, to step away even for a little while. I feel that pull too. But the answer is not to walk away. The answer is to find the moments that refill us and hold onto them through the harder times. A sunset. A walk. A song. A meal with someone we love. We cannot walk this road empty.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/19/politics/irs-barred-investigating-trump-new-settlement-term
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-settlement-trump-bans-irs-taking-action-against-him/
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/g-s1-122938/irs-trump-settlement-tax-returns-audit
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/19/trump-taxes-irs-doj-fund.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-irs-audit-chicago-hotel-taxes
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-iran-war-powers-eighth-vote-trump/
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/23/trump-white-house-east-wing-ballroom-demolish.html
Liz Oyer, Former DOJ Pardon Attorney, explanation: Instagram Reel
Is he a dictator yet? This government is now a kleptocracy being run by an autocrat. In fact, being run by thieves. And who are the thieves? They are the Republican/Maga members of Congress. I won’t use the word Republican anymore since it has no meaning. There aren’t any of them left, except for maybe three or four. Everybody else has given their souls, their children’s souls, their family’s souls, and have given him, their Lord and Savior, Donald Trump, our America. They have allowed him to break the law, put him above the law, put him above their constituency, put him above the 250 years of fighting for and cherishing our liberties and our democracy. One man, this monster, now has control over them and is getting more and more control over all of us, every single day. Yes this is now a dictatorship. Those of you who voted for him, I will feel no compunction to call you out and never to feel pity for you or sadness for you when you find out that he in fact, doesn’t give a wit about you and has only used you for his own gain. He has told you more than once that he doesn’t care about you. I don’t know what is difficult to understand about that. I’m glad I will never understand why any of you voted for him, now enable him and are complicit to his sadistic behavior. I pray that come November, the smirks will be wiped off your faces with a huge Democratic win.
As this is “the largest single act of grand larceny”, how would it not stand to reason that the entire Republican Party who are completely in lockstep with Trump not equally complicit, and must also be held accountable.