transcript:
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Hi everyone, welcome back to Then and Now. I’m Julian Zelizer of The Long View.
JONATHAN ALTER:
And I’m Jonathan Alter of Old Goats.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
So, Jon, slush funds are in the news. Republicans, at least for now, are not going along with this proposed fund from the Department of Justice, a lawfare fund that the attorney general wants to put into place.
It brings back memories of slush funds that we’ve heard about in the past. Of course, one of the most famous was in 1972: the Committee to Re-elect the President, and that was President Richard Nixon.
This operation had a slush fund of its own. It raised money in illicit ways from individuals and corporations. It was undisclosed money. And the money was used to finance all sorts of secret tricks during the election of 1972, from the break-in to G. Gordon Liddy’s multiple operations that he had running at the time.
Then it was also used to try to keep people quiet during the investigation. Hush money. And it became part of the Watergate investigations and revelations, and really a symbol of the problems of money and politics, the abuse of power. Ultimately, we had campaign finance reform in ’74.
So that was a different time, a different kind of slush fund. But how do you think of the comparison between the two?
JONATHAN ALTER:
Well, first of all, I like to call this the “Self-Deal Steal.”
And just a couple of surface differences between these two slush funds: Nixon’s slush fund was $700,000. It was raised from contributors, Nixonites, and it was thoroughly corrupt and used for illegal, corrupt purposes.
Trump’s slush fund is $1.8 billion, $1.776 billion, because I thought that was cute. And it’s not raised from his contributors. At least the first part, the ballroom, is trying to get taxpayer money for that too. But this is from us. This slush fund is from us.
It’s stealing from the American people to reward people who took part in a coup d’état attempt against our country.
And we’ve been, in some ways, numbed to the January 6 part of this. We were all sort of shocked when he pardoned all of them, when J.D. Vance said that he would not do that. And now we’re all sort of shocked by this.
But this is beyond pardoning them. It’s giving them money. It’s just insane.
And the good news, or possibly good news, is that there are some Republicans on the Hill, including some who have just been victimized by Donald Trump and had their careers ended, who are maybe not as willing to go along lockstep on this.
So apparently, at the Republican lunch of Republican senators the other day, 25 of them spoke out about this and were not happy about it.
So it remains to be seen whether this will go through, but it’s the most corrupt act, I think, of any in American history. Anything that Warren Harding, or even Nixon, did just pales in comparison to this.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
I think your basic point is quite stunning: taxpayers are being asked to finance it, as opposed to contributors. It’s another step, in this case, having the public pay for a fund to support those who tried to overturn an election.
It’s an amazing proposal, and we’ll see if Republicans stick with this opposition.
JONATHAN ALTER:
Just one other thing. They said, “Oh no, none of this money is going to go to Trump and his family members.”
I saw them in court. Trump felt he was totally victimized and a victim of lawfare, which I don’t think is a very useful term. People don’t really know what it means.
But they will figure out a way. If this $1.8 billion goes through and you think none of that will end up in the pockets of the Trumps through some sort of kickback or daisy-chain laundering process, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
They’re going to get some of that money if it goes through.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Well, that was Then and Now. Jon, we’ll talk next week.
