If Lawyer Common Pam Bondi has her approach, we gained’t study the staggering quantity of taxpayer {dollars} spent turning the Qatari authorities’s “gift” of a jet into the Flying Bribe Palace that President Donald Trump envisions till nicely after it could matter. There’s no non-nefarious clarification for her refusal to launch the Division of Justice memo claiming that it’s “legally permissible” for the sitting president to just accept a $400 million reward from a overseas authorities in a well timed method. It’s a refusal that has necessitated the Freedom of the Press Basis submitting a Freedom of Info Act lawsuit to attempt to shake this factor unfastened.
Pam, if you happen to suppose the Emoluments Clause ain’t shit, say it together with your complete chest! Don’t conceal your eager authorized evaluation underneath a bushel! America would like to see the way you, a former lobbyist for the Qatari authorities, determined it wasn’t a battle of curiosity so that you can bless this association. It might even be thrilling to understand how you determined this wasn’t only a $400 million bribe {that a} noncorrupt president would have run screaming from.
On Could 15, a day after studies that Bondi’s signature on an Workplace of Authorized Counsel memo was what cleared the best way for the flagrantly apparent bribe, the Freedom of the Press basis filed an expedited FOIA request for the memo. Then they waited. And waited. After following up on June 16, they bought a boilerplate response that was equal elements brushoff and lie:
Please be suggested that the seek for your request is ongoing and accordingly we’ve restricted data with which to supply an estimated date of completion. Till we’ve accomplished our search and know what processing should be performed (similar to consultations with different workplaces whose data may exist in any materials we discover), one of the best estimate I can present is the common processing time for requests on this Workplace’s expedited observe which is 620 days as revealed in DOJ’s Fiscal Yr 2024 annual report. 620 days from when your request was acquired on this Workplace on Could 15, 2025 could be January 25, 2027. Please keep in mind that that is an estimate primarily based on restricted data and accordingly topic to variation.
Guys: It’s a memo. One memo. That Bondi and Trump have each confirmed and bragged about. There’s no “search for your request” occurring, and the best way you present FOIA response estimates is to not simply say, “Well, right now everything takes 620 days, so that’s when you’ll get it. Maybe.” Sure FOIA requests could take inner precedence, sure FOIA requests could also be voluminous, sure FOIA requests could have an effect on scores of departments, and sure FOIA requests may have tons of complicated redactions. That is actually a request for one particular doc the federal government revealed exists by bragging about the way it allowed Qatar to bribe Trump. However per the DOJ, their finest guess as to after they may discover the time to launch it simply occurs to fall after not simply the midterm elections but additionally the seating of the brand new Congress. Helpful
It additionally appears to be a date chosen to get previous the time anticipated to rehab the Qatari jet into the gold-plated monstrosity that Trump’s “taste” calls for and to make it viable for use as Air Power One. Would you wish to know what number of of your taxpayer {dollars} are going towards this? You may’t. It’s a secret. No, actually.
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The administration has categorized the knowledge, however it does seem that the funding stream is popping out of an current challenge to modernize America’s nuclear missiles. $934 million seems to have been transferred out of that and into an unnamed categorized challenge, one which even The New York Instances says is “almost certainly” the Qatari jet refurb.
It’s estimated that the work will take a yr or two, which implies that the administration has to expire the clock on offering any data which may trigger a public outcry. Trump wants taxpayers to unknowingly give an help to the Qatari authorities’s technique of securing favorable therapy from him and never cease his gold-plated goals with nonsense like how unlawful this all is. Particularly as a result of Individuals are usually not precisely wild about this complete factor.
However the longer this stays at midnight, the extra probably we’ll all have paid for many of what Trump needs earlier than anybody is the wiser. And bear in mind, irrespective of how a lot of your cash is spent on this factor, ultimately it advantages Trump personally, as it’ll go off with him to his eventual Stationary Bribe Palace—his presidential library.
Sure, the jet will be part of the billions and billions of {dollars} extracted from feckless media corporations desperate to curry favor with Trump. It might have been cheaper for media moguls simply to purchase him a jet or two, truthfully.
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The struggle over this can find yourself the place all these fights over Trump’s corruption do: the US Supreme Courtroom. You simply know that Justice Clarence Thomas has already prewritten the bulk opinion explaining the way it isn’t a bribe when the president does it. Oh, and in a tiny footnote on the backside: It isn’t a bribe when Justice Thomas lets billionaires with enterprise earlier than the best court docket choose up his trip tab, so cease bothering him.
Corruption begets—and protects—corruption, and the remainder of us are all actually paying the value.
