Something Tells Me Trump’s Not Giving Up on His Weaponization Slush Fund

I don’t trust the Department of Justice when it says the anti-weaponization slush fund is not only dead but really most sincerely dead as far as I could throw Todd Blanche. If you recall, Blanche resolutely told a congressional oversight committee that he refused to put the death of the slush in writing. Now, in a filing with the judge who temporarily blocked the fund, the DOJ has finally done that. Except it may not have. From NBC News:

In a filing Friday afternoon, Justice Department attorney Andrew Block and other DOJ representatives said that no money had been transferred to the fund and that no members of the five-person panel tasked with making decisions about distributing the funds had been appointed. “This is a rare case that is simultaneously moot and premature,” they wrote. “One of the reasons Plaintiffs were forced to speculate so much about how the Fund would operate is because so little had happened when they sued.”

“Simultaneously moot and premature.” Wow. Beautiful. I thought I was an expert in Higher Weasel-Speak, but this is beyond my poor capabilities. But it is an indication that anything coming out of this administration regarding this raid on the public purse isn’t worth the paper on which the eventual indictments will be printed.

In his now infamous interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, the president made it clear that his heart is still with the Bear Spray Brigade. Which leads me to believe that he’s just dying to put this scam into action. Which further leads me to believe that the whole scheme is far more alive than dead. From the interview:

TRUMP: So let—let me explain what the fund is. People have been hurt so badly by radical left lunatics that worked for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe. They’re vicious. They’re violent, what they did to people. And of course they went after me more than anybody else. They raided Mar-a-Lago and all the other things. But people have been badly hurt. They’ve committed suicide. They’ve lost their jobs. They’re lost their families. They’ve lost their wives. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost everything over a fake weaponization of government.

WELKER: So are you looking for a way to revive it?

TRUMP: Well, look. If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve. People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them. ... So me, personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.

WELKER: Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6 should get taxpayer money?

TRUMP: I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. I can tell you this: 97 percent of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, ’cause you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops.

After which, hilarity ensued.

TRUMP: Comey was a dirty cop.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, there is no evidence to—

TRUMP: A guy like Bolton was a dirty cop—

WELKER: But there is no evidence that—but there’s no evidence that people who—

TRUMP: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh, you think Comey was a straight cop?

WELKER: We had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.

TRUMP: Comey was a dirty cop.

WELKER: No, no, but the people who assaulted police officers.

TRUMP: They had FBI—listen to me. They had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI “go into the building.” Those people are walking around, they’re looking, “Oh, isn’t this nice?” They weren’t in—they were being ushered into the building.

WELKER: There’s no evidence of that, sir. There’s no evidence of that.

TRUMP: You had a bunch of dirty cops, and, frankly, what they did was weaponization of our government.

WELKER: But sir, there—there’s no evidence of that. More than a thousand people pleaded guilty to crimes—

TRUMP: No, well, yeah, no, there’s none. You know what they do?

WELKER: Would you—

TRUMP: Try looking at the tapes one time.

WELKER: Would you take it off the table?

TRUMP: Look at the tapes one time.

WELKER: Okay, but 172 people did plead guilty to assaulting police officers.

TRUMP: You know why they pled guilty?

WELKER: Should they be exempt—

TRUMP: Because they told they were going to jail for 15 years—

KRISTEN WELKER: —from receiving funds?

TRUMP: —if they didn’t.

KRISTEN WELKER: Should they—

TRUMP: They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down. They were ushered into a building. Many of them were arrested without even going into the building.

Not long after that, the president stormed off, and Welker slowly returned from the very strange tea party she’d shared with a large white rabbit.

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.

“Nor I,” said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”