This is the post I hoped I’d never have to write

Yesterday afternoon, while the news stations were busy covering Donald Trump’s visit to China, something truly sinister was being planned. And if it goes through, it would be one of the most dangerous acts of corruption we have seen from this administration, with consequences that could impact not just the upcoming elections, but also whether this country survives the next decade.

ABC News broke the story of a potential settlement to Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit that would create a $1.7 billion fund for the president to pay his allies, the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol, and any others who claim they were harmed by what Trump calls the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system. These are some of the same people who beat police officers with American flags, hunted members of Congress through the halls of our Capitol, and chanted about wanting to harm the Vice President and members of Congress. Those people may now receive checks from the United States Treasury, signed off on by a commission Trump controls, with the power to keep every single recipient’s name hidden from public record. And buried in the reporting was one more detail. The recipients could also include, in ABC News’s own words, “entities associated with President Trump himself.”

The $1.7 billion would come from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund, a pool of taxpayer money that exists to pay out legitimate court judgments against the United States. Under the proposed arrangement, a five-member commission would have total authority to hand out the money. Trump could remove commission members without cause. The commission would not be required to disclose its procedures, its decision-making, or even the identities of the people receiving the money. There would be no congressional vote on any individual payout. There would be no public record of where the money went.

This is the president of the United States, reportedly setting up a fund where taxpayer money flows out the door to people he chooses, with no oversight, transparency, or record of who got paid. And his own companies could be among the recipients.

This is what corruption looks like on multiple levels. This is a paycheck to commit crimes on behalf of the president.

Because what it does is even bigger than the dollar amount. It sends a message to every person in this country who has been thinking about whether to break the law for Donald Trump. Or whether to take an order that crosses a line. The message is, if you do it for me, I will not just pardon you. I will pay you. I will make you better than whole. I will reward your loyalty with taxpayer dollars.

We are less than six months from the midterms. Six months from the only thing standing between this country and a fully consolidated authoritarian government. And the president of the United States is reportedly building a fund to financially reward the people who already tried to overturn one election for him. Those people may now receive checks from the United States Treasury.

This is how regimes buy their foot soldiers. In Mussolini’s Italy, the Blackshirts were rewarded with positions, pay, and protection from prosecution. The state did not just look away when they committed violence on behalf of the regime. It compensated them for it. It told them that their loyalty had a price, and the state would pay it. In Pinochet’s Chile, the secret police and the paramilitary groups that disappeared dissidents were quietly paid out of state funds, with their identities protected and their actions shielded from accountability. The pattern is always the same. The regime needs a private army. The private army needs to know it will be taken care of. And the public is forced to pay for both.

What Trump is reportedly building is the American version of that arrangement. A commission with no oversight. A pool of money with no public record. A list of recipients that can be kept private. A president who can fire any commission member who refuses to approve a payment. And a constituency of pardoned insurrectionists waiting to be told what they will be asked to do next.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called it what it is. He said Trump is “systematically converting neutral government mechanisms into a presidential slush fund to build his army of political dependents.” Senator Elizabeth Warren called it an “insane level of corruption, even for Trump.” But the language we have for what we are watching does not yet match the scale of it. This is not corruption in the way we used to mean that word. This is beyond anything we have experienced before. And to be direct, it is terrifying. Because those sitting on the sidelines, looking for a quick dollar or notoriety, will know that no matter what they do, as long as it is done for Donald Trump, they will not be held accountable criminally, and they will profit financially. That is what this does. And we already know there are Trump loyalists in large numbers just waiting for their time to shine. And then there are the opportunists who are being hurt by Trump’s economy, who are desperate enough to do whatever they can for his next rollout of money. These are the people who will be standing by to carry out his dirty work. Donald Trump’s own personal army, ready to interfere with elections and worse. All funded with our money. The taxpayers’ money.

And while we were learning about this proposed fund yesterday, the president of the United States was on Air Force One, flying home from a three-day summit with Xi Jinping, doing something just as dangerous. He turned to David Sanger, the New York Times White House and National Security Correspondent, and accused him of the most serious crime against our government and country. Treason.

Sanger had asked a simple question. He asked what the point would be of repeating the bombing campaign against Iran when the previous 38 days of bombing had not produced the political change Trump said he wanted. It was the question a free press exists to ask. And Trump’s response was this:

“I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write, but you and the New York Times and CNN, I would say, are the worst.” And a moment later: “I actually think it’s treason.”

Treason is not a casual word. Treason is defined in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution. It is the only crime the founders wrote into the Constitution itself, because they understood how often kings and tyrants had used the accusation of treason to destroy their political enemies. The framers wrote it narrowly on purpose. It means levying war against the United States, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. Nothing else qualifies. And under federal law, treason is a capital offense. It is one of the few crimes for which a person in this country can be put to death.

That is the word the president of the United States used, twice, against a reporter from the New York Times. For doing his job by asking a question. The New York Times responded directly. Their spokesman said, “Reporting isn’t treason. It’s foundational to a free press and the work that America’s founders wrote the First Amendment to protect.” They are right. And the fact that they had to say it out loud, in 2026, tells us exactly where we are under Trump’s reign.

This is not new behavior from Trump. He has called the press the enemy of the people. His FCC chair, Brendan Carr, has threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for networks Carr accused of “running hoaxes.” And on the same Air Force One flight, Trump turned to a BBC reporter and called the BBC another “fake outfit,” referencing a lawsuit the network is currently facing. The pattern is the same every time. Question him, and you are an enemy. Report what is verifiable, and you are a traitor. Stay quiet, and report only positives or propaganda, and you are spared, even rewarded.

What is new is the word. Treasonous. Because treason carries a specific weight in American law that no other accusation does. When a president of the United States says that a reporter committed treason, he is not just insulting that reporter. He is signaling to every prosecutor, federal agent, loyal supporter, and every armed extremist that this person has been identified as an enemy of the state. And even beyond that, he is setting the stage to criminally prosecute the press. Not just David Sanger or the New York Times. Every reporter who covers his wars honestly. Every writer who documents his corruption. Every independent creator who tells their audience what is really happening inside this country. He is building the rhetorical case for when his Department of Justice moves against the first journalist for treason. He is not just prepping his sycophants for what is to come. He is also sending a warning to the rest of us who are calling out his corruption, cruelty, and chaos. He is coming for us all, and it will not just be his typical personal lawsuits. This time, he wants us silenced, and anyone thinking of speaking out to stop before they start.

We have seen this exact sequence in other countries. In Putin’s Russia, journalists who were called traitors were poisoned, imprisoned, or thrown out of windows. In Erdogan’s Turkey, journalists labeled as traitors were jailed by the hundreds. In Orban’s Hungary, the label was used to drive independent outlets out of business and to replace them with state propaganda outlets. The press is named as the enemy first. Then the press is treated as the enemy. Then the press disappears.

And it is happening here. By a president who, in the same trip, sat across from Xi Jinping and refused to answer whether the United States would defend Taiwan. By a president who, on the same flight, said it would be “treasonous” for an American reporter to question a war that has killed civilians and damaged American standing around the world. By a president who is reportedly about to hand $1.7 billion in taxpayer money to a commission he controls, to compensate the people who have already broken the law on his behalf.

This is the end stage of what a captured government looks like. The president is unwell, impulsive, and openly threatening. The people around him are ideologically committed. They do not need him to govern. They need him to sign. And the rest of the system, the courts, the Congress, the press, is being squeezed from every direction.

This is our time to act. Immediately. We must refuse to let any of it become normal. We have to get louder. Our government has failed us. The few Democrats opposing this are carrying a heavy load, and others are just treading water, waiting for the midterms. But we don’t have time to just sit and wait. Because what Donald Trump did on Air Force One was not a rhetorical insult. It was the placement of a target on every journalist, writer, and independent voice in this country who is telling the truth about what is happening. He is setting the stage to criminally prosecute the press.

We must build our own well-funded, well-shared, and well-placed alternative news and information network that they cannot scare or starve into silence. Every time Trump attacks the press or the First Amendment, I have and will continue to call it out by name. I made a promise when I started writing these posts a year ago, that every single time this administration came for the press, came for the First Amendment, came for the right of the American people to speak the truth out loud, I would name it. Today they took the sharpest aim yet. And I am naming it. This was an attack on every one of us who has ever typed the word fascist, shared a post, called a representative, or showed up to a protest. They want us to feel it. They want us to hesitate the next time we go to speak. Our answer has to be that we do not hesitate. We say it louder.

And we put our money where our voices are. Every time this administration attacks the First Amendment, we respond by funding the people defending it. That is the most direct form of resistance available to us right now. Independent media is how the truth stays alive when every other system is being captured. I have written every single night for a year with no corporate backing and no sponsorship money. No one who could reach into what I wrote and change a word of it. Every post I write is free for everyone, because the truth should not be behind a paywall. But that is only possible because of the people who choose to support this work with a paid membership. The ones who understand what is at stake, and who choose to invest in keeping a voice like this alive.

Tonight, I am asking you to think beyond just my voice. Think about every writer, every journalist, every podcaster, every independent outlet you turn to when you need the truth, and you trust what you are reading. The ones who are still standing with the truth, even when doing so comes at great cost. Because what this administration is trying to build requires our silence. And the most powerful thing we can do right now is make sure the people refusing to be silent can keep going. Please support them too. Every paid subscription to an independent voice, journalist, writer, and creator is a vote against Donald Trump’s threats. Because if we go silent now, he wins. The only way we stay in the fight is if we never stop sharing the truth.

We knew that Trump was only going to increase his corrupt ways ahead of the midterms, but even so, this fund and its subsequent message are jarring. They are a glimpse of exactly how far he is willing to go and how openly he is willing to do it. But there is something we need to hold onto right now. Donald Trump’s suggestion that a reporter asking questions was committing treason shows us how he really feels about this moment. He is not lashing out from a position of strength. He is lashing out because he is on a sinking ship. And he knows it. The polls know it. His own party knows it. And the only move he has left is to threaten and intimidate the people asking the questions he cannot answer if he wants to stay in power.

That is what cornered men do. They do not argue with the truth. They try to bury it. And the only way to bury the truth is to criminalize the people telling it. That is what the slush fund is for. That is what the treason accusation is for. Both of them are the actions of a man who knows the walls are closing in and is reaching for anything that might buy him more time. But every reporter who keeps asking, every writer who keeps writing, every reader who keeps showing up, makes those walls close a little faster. We are not the ones who should be afraid right now. He is. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

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: Thank goodness for dogs. That is all.

Sources:

President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Anchorage, AK, May 15, 2026: VIDEO

https://abcnews.com/US/trump-poised-drop-irs-suit-launch-17b-weaponization/story?id=132962661

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/15/trump-irs-taxes-democrats.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/210521/trump-settlement-irs-slush-fund

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-irs-lawsuit-slush-fund

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/15/headlines/abc_trump_set_to_unveil_17_billion_irs_compensation_fund_to_benefit_maga_allies

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5880111-air-force-trump-china-iran-war/

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-attacks-reporter-inches-from-his-face-on-air-force-one-treasonous-fake-guy/

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/ny-times-hits-back-hard-at-trump-accusing-its-reporter-of-treason-for-constitutionally-protected-work/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/05/15/trump_blasts_nyts_david_sanger_weve_had_a_total_victory_in_iran_except_with_treasonous_reporters_like_you.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-attacks-reporter-treasonous-iran-war-success_n_6a0711b5e4b0ee7169721857

https://deadline.com/2026/05/trump-treason-new-york-times-1236906557/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fcc-brendan-carr-threat-news-networks-broadcast-license/

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/16/nx-s1-5748570/fcc-chair-threatens-broadcasters-licenses-over-negative-coverage-of-the-war-in-iran

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/14/media/fcc-brendan-carr-trump-iran-war-abc-nbc-cbs

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/16/trump-bbc-panorama-election-defamation-lawsuit.html

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-3/section-3/

https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/treason.html