Once The Dems Win Back Both Houses Of Congress, Will There Be Accountability For Trump's Corruption?

"Striking A Deal" by Nancy Ohanian

With Trump and his lifelong immersion in corruption, where do you even start in trying to hold him accountable? Biden and Merrick Garland, his unfit Attorney General, sure blew it when they had the chance! Trump should have been arrested on January 20, 2021, minutes after the inauguration. Unless you’re delusional, you already know that with Señor T corruption isn’t a bug— it’s the whole damn operating system. From his shady real estate deals, the looting of his fake charities and, noww, the Qatari Palace in the Sky, Trump’s entire career has been a masterclass in self-enrichment and legal evasion. Since the election he's added a new arrow to his quiver: crypto. And just like everything else Trump touches, it's drenched in grift a new barely-regulated way to launder money, scam his base and dodge accountability.

Trump doesn’t gave a shit about blockchain, decentralization or any of the libertarian fantasies crypto evangelists peddle. What he sees is an unregulated cash flow, a digital Wild West he can exploit without transparency or accountability. And right on cue, he’s already knee-deep in it. The same turd who ran a fake university, cheated cancer patients and defrauded his own donors is now positioning himself as a savior of digital finance? Please. Last night, he hosted a swanky crypto dinner at his golf club in Washington, DC. It wasn’t a fundraiser— it was a money-laundering seminar disguised as a campaign event. The guest list? Secret but apparently a who’s-who of international crypto speculators, dark money operatives and digital libertarians looking for one thing: access. 

Afterwards, Ted Lieu (D-CA) told me that “This dinner is a grotesque spectacle of pay-to-play politics and an insult to the American people. President Trump has turned the presidency into a private marketplace where access to power is auctioned off to the highest bidder, no matter their nationality or intent. It’s not just unethical— it’s dangerous. By allowing shadowy investors and foreign interests to buy a seat at his table, Trump is actively undermining our democracy and shredding the basic norms of public service. This isn’t leadership— it’s corruption in its purest form.”

At the same time, Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and several other senators released this statement on the introduction of their anti-corruption amendment to the GENIUS Act:

“Elected officials have a responsibility to serve the American people— not line their own pockets. To crack down on the blatant corruption of the President and his family, our amendment prohibits the President, Vice President and senior government officials from directly or indirectly profiting from a stablecoin venture while in office. The GENIUS Act should not pass the Senate without this fix. Otherwise, we leave the door open to selling access to the United States government to the highest bidder.”

Since Alan Grayson, a candidate for a state Senate seat in the Orlando metro, has been tweeting about this for weeks, I asked him if he thinks this dinner was part of a potential impeachment trial. He has no doubt that it does. “It certainly qualifies as an impeachable offense; my book lists several cases of impeachment for bribery, going back to Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon. As to what else to do, the Attorneys General for New York, DC and California should open bribery investigations, and there should be a petition and letter-writing campaign directed to what is left of the Public Integrity Office at DOJ (and the FBI) to investigate. I would also like to see the media interview the attendees, and discuss their motivations. Trump has put both the government and the law up for sale to the highest bidder.”

I also asked several of the candidates from the Flip Congress page for their perspectives on what happened— and what should happen. Iowa progressive Travis Terrell, the candidate running against MAGA suck-up Mariannette Miller-Meeks, told me that “Trump's crypto dinner, where he padded his own pockets while using the office of the presidency to collect money from Chinese billionaires and international crooks, would've been enough to get any other president in American history impeached, even without his long list of previous crimes and outright contempt for the Constitution. If Congress doesn't write articles of impeachment, then they're sending a message that we've surrendered, that Trump now gets a free pass to break the law at will. We can't let that happen. He needs to be fought at every single corner, because the rule of law still matters.no matter how much money you have or how many elections you've stolen.”

Randy Bryce, the progressive Wisconsin Democrat taking on Trump lackey Bryan Steil, said that almost nothing surprises him “when it comes to what’s going on in our government these days. If accepting a bribe from Qatar— home of terror’s leadership— wasn’t bad enough, now he’s accepting bribes in foreign crypto from people who we’ll never know the names of. If Congress won’t stand up to him, they need to be replaced. We’ll be lucky if there’s anything left to save by the midterms.”