Ex-Bush official sounds alarm on Trump's 'open fire hydrant' of grift

A former aide to President George W. Bush is accusing the current Republican president, Donald Trump, of committing more corruption than America is capable of handling.

“Donald Trump's corruption has become an open fire hydrant. There are no words to describe it," Steve Schmidt said in his Wednesday Substack, citing the acting Attorney General of the United States, Trump's former personal lawyer, testifying before the Congress.”

After reviewing how interim AG Todd Blanche refused to clarify the details about Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters and possibly himself, Schmidt described how that deal was corrupt. Trump received the slush fund after suing the IRS for $10 billion because a contractor associated with the agency leaked his tax returns (which showed he had not filed for taxes for years and had multiple business failures) in 2018. Because Trump controls the IRS and Justice Department, and the Justice Department’s role is to defend the IRS from lawsuits, a judge assigned legal experts to determine whether Trump’s attempted slush fund was legal.

To avoid that legal oversight, Trump “settled” for $1.776 billion.

“It is remarkable,” said Schmidt. “Donald Trump has just been given more than $1.8 billion by his lawyer's signature, who is now the Attorney General, creating a slush fund for extremists that Donald Trump can reward them, give them recompense, give them reparations. Donald Trump didn't invent corruption, but he has perfected it. He has created a vicious cult of personality.”

Schmidt then noted there was a 2020 breach of IRS data that leaked data for more than 400,000 people, not one of whom has received a settlement.

“Millions of Americans work hard and they pay half of what they make to the IRS — to taxes — to fund the schools, the roads, the military,” Schmidt said. “What's happening with Trump isn't just not right. It is an insult, a mockery of every hardworking person who plays by the rules. Donald Trump is laughing at us.”

He added, “And so is his family. They are the greatest collection of takers in all of whole history of the United States. There are no examples of corruption that are even in the same galaxy as this. It is truly, truly incredible. Mind-boggling. And yet it rolls on, and it will continue to do so until there's a Democratic Congress that makes it stop.”

Speaking to MS NOW earlier on Wednesday, historian and documentarian Ken Burns argued that America’s founding fathers would be disgusted both by Trump’s corruption and by the Republican-controlled legislature’s refusal to rein him in.

“The founders would less be surprised by someone taking authoritarian power than they would be by [Congressional] abdication,” historian Ken Burns, who has made more than 30 acclaimed documentaries on American history and other subjects, told MS NOW. “Article One is the legislative and Article Two is the executive. That would be the manager carrying out what the executive — what the legislative — wanted. And that is not happening. And we're seeing even the courts go into that realm.”

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