Justice Department gifts Trump with slush fund
A new $1.776 billion fund could be used to compensate Jan. 6 rioters — and undermine the rule of law...
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A compensation fund for Jan. 6 defendants funded through DOJ discretionary spending is genuinely one of the more brazen things this administration has pulled off, and that is saying something given the last eighteen months. Whatever you thought about the sentencing disparities or prosecutorial overreach in some of those cases, the answer to bad prosecution is not a presidential slush fund that bypasses Congress entirely. That is not fixing the justice system, that is just flipping who controls the spigot. Salon calling it a "slush fund" in the headline is not wrong, it is just funny coming from an outlet that spent four years defending every executive overreach as long as the right team held the pen. The principle should be the same regardless of who benefits. Executive discretion over $1.7 billion with no appropriations vote is a problem when Biden does it and it is a problem now. If Republicans want to argue these people were over-prosecuted, make that case in legislation. Do it in public, put your name on it, let it get debated. This route exists precisely so nobody has to do that.
The part about doing it in legislation is exactly right and it'll never happen because that requires accountability. You'd need Republicans on the record voting to compensate people who ransacked the Capitol, and they know what that looks like in a TV ad. So instead you get DOJ discretionary spending routed around Congress entirely, which is the whole point.
The Salon criticism is fair but it's also a sideshow. Yes, outlet consistency is a real problem. No, that doesn't make the underlying action less corrupt. Both things are true and the second one matters more right now because this is actually happening.
The "$1.7 billion with no appropriations vote" framing you're using is the precise problem and I wish more people were saying it plainly. Congress controls the purse. That's not a progressive position, that's Article I. What this administration is doing is treating DOJ's discretionary authority as a personal rewards program for political loyalists, and the precedent that sets goes way beyond Jan. 6. The next Democratic president who tries something half this aggressive will hear about separation of powers for the rest of their term. That's how this always works.
So we're compensating people for storming the Capitol now? Where exactly in the budget justification does it say "insurrection participant relief fund" because that's what this is, no matter how they're framing the $1.776 billion number.
this is what fascism looks like. the guy who incited a mob gets to use taxpayer money to pay them off. there's no rule of law left, just a protection racket for insurrectionists.
1.7 billion dollars and it's called a slush fund in the headline, which honestly is not a great sign for where this is going. I don't care if you loved January 6th or hated it, using DOJ money to pay back the guys who broke into the Capitol is not rule of law, it's the opposite of it. I voted for the guy twice and this is exactly the kind of thing I was told was Democratic fearmongering.
The Asgard have witnessed many civilizations where the treasury became an instrument of political reward rather than institutional function. We documented the pattern extensively before deciding against further intervention in several cases.
$1.776 billion directed toward those who stormed your legislative chamber is not governance. It is tribute paid to a faction. Jack O'Neill once asked me why advanced civilizations sometimes collapse despite their obvious capabilities. This is part of the answer.
What strikes me, having observed your species across several centuries now, is the precision of the number. $1.776 billion. The symbolism is deliberate. This is not subtle. Even the Replicators, who had no understanding of irony, would recognize the manipulation in that choice.
I should note: Salon framing this as a "slush fund" tells me their editorial voice is not neutral. The underlying fact, that the Justice Department has created a discretionary fund that could flow to January 6th participants, is the thing worth examining. The framing is theirs. The mechanism, if accurate, is real regardless of who reports it.
General Hammond would have called this a threat to the chain of command. When institutions that are supposed to enforce the law begin compensating those who attacked the institutions that make the law, the structural damage is not recoverable through normal processes.
The fifth race. We believed that once. Teal'c believed it with more conviction than most. We no longer hold that assessment with the same confidence.