Trump’s Corrupt America

“With Congress, every time they make a joke it’s a law, and every time they make a law it’s a joke.” -Will Rogers

Turns out, Will Rogers was right, even though he was joking.

Last night, before my post was derailed by the president’s latest meltdown over the Epstein emails and the chaos Trump keeps unleashing by design, I had planned to talk about something that still isn’t getting the attention it deserves. And if the world weren’t constantly on fire, if we weren’t being hit with distraction after distraction, this would be the political scandal of the decade.

So let’s get into it.

Back on January 6, 2021, the sitting president of the United States incited a violent insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power. In the aftermath, Special Counsel Jack Smith launched a criminal investigation into how it happened, who helped, and which lawmakers may have been involved. As part of that probe, eight Republican senators had their phone records lawfully accessed. And now, instead of defending their actions, answering for what happened, and demanding a full investigation themselves of the day’s events, those same senators turned a criminal investigation into their personal payday. Because hidden inside the Senate’s bill to reopen the government was a clause allowing any senator to sue the federal government for $500,000 each time their phone records were (legally) pulled without notice.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz told Politico it was Senate Majority Leader John Thune who made sure the provision stayed in. The bill passed the Senate, then the House. Many lawmakers now admit they didn’t even know the clause was in there. Lindsey Graham, who potentially qualifies for the payout, told reporters he will “definitely” sue. His words: “I want to make it so painful no one ever does this again.”

Does what again? Make sure that our elected officials are upholding their oath to the office in which they were elected? Make sure that they are held to the highest standard of the law? Because if investigating lawmakers who may have participated in an attempt to overthrow democracy is now grounds for financial retaliation, then we’re no longer operating under equal justice. We’re setting a precedent that elected officials are entitled to profit when they’re questioned, not punished. That’s not accountability. That’s legalized intimidation. And it puts every future investigation, every oversight hearing, every attempt at justice on notice.

Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it unconscionable. After it passed, Speaker Mike Johnson conceded it was “a really bad look” and said the House plans to “fix” it later with a standalone bill.

But here’s the truth. Whether or not that fix ever comes, the damage is done. The scandal isn’t just that it passed. The scandal is that they even tried it. That they slipped it in quietly. That they used their power, during a shutdown, to line their own pockets by writing a check to themselves. They added language that would personally benefit them in one of the most grotesque and cynical ways imaginable.

When you take the oath to serve in Congress, you take on the responsibility to act in the best interest of the country. You are supposed to be a public servant. This wasn’t that. This was opportunism at its most corrupt. This was looting of public money. This was political theft hidden in fine print.

Let’s not sugarcoat what January 6 actually was. It was a coordinated attempt to stop the certification of a legal election. It was violent. It was deadly. It was an attempt to overthrow the government and keep Trump in office illegally. And during that moment, every single member of Congress had their life at risk. If you were innocent, if you had nothing to do with it, you should have been the first one to hand over your records. You should have said, yes, absolutely, search everything. This is my duty. This is my country. This is my job.

But these eight senators didn’t do that. They are trying to turn the investigation into a personal payday.

And to be fair, it wasn’t just Republicans who let it through. Eight Democrats voted for it, too, right after voters sent a clear message at the ballot box: fight for us, don’t side with Trump’s chaos. These Democrats looked at that message and still voted yes.

That’s not just a broken government. That’s corruption.

And it doesn’t stop there. While families went without paychecks and food assistance during the shutdown, the Department of Homeland Security used that as an opportunity to quietly conceal more financial corruption, routing $220 million of our tax dollars to a Republican-aligned PR firm through a shell company, because they count on the chaos to cover their tracks, and they think the American people are too clueless to connect the dots.

According to a ProPublica investigation, DHS handed off $143 million of the $220 million for so-called “border awareness” ads to a Delaware front company created just days before the deal was finalized. The real recipient? A GOP firm called The Strategy Group, the same company that ran Kristi Noem’s 2022 campaign, produced her Mount Rushmore ad, and is run by her chief spokesperson’s husband. That’s not just unethical. According to federal contracting experts, it may be illegal. Former officials called it corrupt. Watchdog groups are demanding an investigation.

And this firm is deeply embedded in Trump’s circle. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s longtime ally and now one of Noem’s senior advisors at DHS, has worked closely with them. Another Strategy Group consultant was later hired into a leadership role at ICE. This isn’t an isolated contract. It’s a pattern. A political machine built to extract public money for private power, with loyalty, not merit, as the currency.

This wasn’t a competitive contract. DHS called it a “national emergency” so they could skip the usual process and hand the money wherever they wanted. This is how corruption works now, quietly, behind the scenes, without accountability. It’s how loyalty gets rewarded: take care of the people who serve the agenda, and keep the money flowing to those at the top. While a small group concentrates wealth and power, the rest of us are left with barely enough to get by, and that’s not an accident. When people are stretched thin and just trying to survive, they’re easier to control, easier to distract, easier to silence. In any normal time, this kind of scandal would have led to firings, resignations, even impeachment. That’s how serious it is. Now it’s just one more example of them using public money for political gain and creating wealth for their corrupt inner circle of friends.

We’re looking at a government that no longer serves the people; it serves itself. It rewrites laws for its own protection. It punishes transparency. It rewards corruption. And it’s happening in the open.

We’ve seen this pattern in American history before. In the 1920s, it was the Teapot Dome scandal, when the U.S. Secretary of the Interior secretly leased federal oil reserves to private companies without competitive bidding. In return, he received bribes disguised as loans, bonds, and cattle. It was one of the first times Americans saw the full machinery of government used to enrich political allies, and it sent a sitting Cabinet member to prison.

In the 1980s, it was the Iran-Contra affair, where officials in the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran, a hostile foreign government under U.S. sanctions, and then secretly funneled the profits to right-wing militants in Nicaragua, violating direct orders from Congress. It was an operation run in the shadows, built on lies, and justified by loyalty to an ideology over the law.

The names change, but the scheme stays the same: take public money, hand it to political insiders, and hope the public is too exhausted or distracted to fight back.

But this time, the stakes aren’t just higher, they’re existential. The rewards are bigger, the corruption is bolder, and the worst part is, they’re not even bothering to hide it anymore. That’s what should keep every one of us up at night. Because if this is what we’re able to see, then what’s happening behind the scenes? What are they doing that hasn’t been uncovered yet? If this is the visible part of the iceberg, how deep does it go?

And here’s the part that really matters: Democrats still aren’t hitting this hard enough.

They have everything they need, the facts, the truth, the receipts. But they’re still not saying what people actually need to hear: that corruption isn’t some fancy political term. It’s why your rent is up. It’s why your groceries cost more. It’s why your health insurance just doubled. It’s why you had to call your pharmacy and ask which medication you could afford this month.

Trump gets it, though. He’s already trying to act like he’s the one who cares about affordability. He’s testing the message. Trying to copy Democrats like Zohran Mamdani, who ran on affordability and won in New York City. And if Democrats don’t start making that connection, between corruption and affordability, they’re going to lose people who are barely holding on.

Because right now, it’s the holiday season. People are struggling. SNAP recipients just went weeks without food assistance. Families are still recovering from the shutdown. Democrats need to push this quickly and hard, and then keep the pressure on through the midterms. They need to make the messaging simple: Trump, his policies, and every one of his enablers do not care if you can afford to live. They do not care about your survival or your children’s. They’ve made that clear. And it’s time Democrats do the same, by showing exactly where the money is going. If more people knew that $220 million of public money was just quietly handed over to Trump loyalists, while they couldn’t afford groceries, this conversation would be over. People aren’t apathetic. They’re overwhelmed. Show them the truth, plainly and relentlessly, and they will act. But someone has to say it first. And keep saying it.

This is not something new. This is another chapter in Project 2025, and it’s exactly how authoritarian systems operate. They protect their own. They turn laws into weapons and loyalty into currency. They rewrite the rules not for justice, but to shield themselves from it.

And if you’re wondering how to talk about this with people in your community, start with the basics. Don’t just call it corruption. Call it what it is:
A reward for helping Trump break the law.
A payout for aiding an attempted insurrection.
And a slap in the face to every working person trying to afford their next meal.

And if you want to talk about affordability? Start here:
We can’t afford to keep paying traitors.

We are not powerless. But we are on the clock. The last time fascism rose in Europe, it didn’t happen in one day. It crept in while people were struggling. While lawmakers looked away. While the public was told it was no big deal.

This is our moment to stop it. To call it out.
To remember what we’re fighting for.
To make it impossible to ignore.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can help keep this work going by subscribing to my Substack; there’s a free option, or you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month. Paid subscriptions help me reach more people, cover more ground, and keep telling the truth about what’s happening to our country.