'BradCast' 5/27/2026 (Encore: Trump's $1.8 Billion DOJ-Facilitated Taxpayer Heist, with Robert Weissman of Public Citizen)

This is Bradcast producer Desi Doyen. We're off today. Today's Bradcast was originally recorded on May 18th, 2026. What we know now is that corruption is the whole purpose of the Trump administration. It's not like some eccentric peripheral thing. It's a vast money-making operation. Yeah. And it just got money-making her. Today. Fun. That's why. I got the feeling of something right. No, it ain't. I'm so scared. I fall off. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the broadcast. As heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, 98.7 in Santa Barbara, 93.7 in San Diego, 99.5 FM in Ridgecrest and China Lake. Elsewhere in California, in Red Bluffin, Redding on KFOI, Round Mountains, KKRN, up in Oregon on the Central Coast, on KYAQ, Cottage Groves, Koso, and Eugene's KEPW. Lanchester, Pennsylvania's W News, Maui, Hawaii's K-A-K-U. In Columbus, Ohio on WGRN, Palinville, New York's W-L-P-P-R-F-See. Down in New Orleans, on WHIV, out in Gallup, New Mexico, on K-N-I-Z, Concord, New Hampshire's WNHN, Fayetteville, Arkansas, K-P-SQ. In Seattle on K-O-D-X, Richmond, Virginia's WRWK, Fairmont, West Virginia's, W.E.F.R. Janesville, Wisconsin's W.A.R. Minneapolis, St. Paul's AM 950 KTNF. We also stream coast to coast and around the globe every day on the Internet, on the Progressive Voices Channel, Netroots Radio, Radio for Humans, Nicole Sandler.com, Radio Free Brooklyn, No Lies Radio, Detour Talk, Del Marva FM, and most of your favorite podcast sites. Blanketing, Planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker. And all-round, swell fellow says me from brand blog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today for another thrilling edition of the brandcast. If you went into the weekend worried about the hanta virus spreading from that cruise ship, well, good news for you. If that was all you had to worry about, public health officials have for weeks, in fact, been arguing that due to the way it spreads, unlike, say, COVID. or Ebola, there's a little concern for worry in this particular case. On the other hand, with that as one less thing to worry about the World Health Organization over the weekend, declared a global health emergency over N.

Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda with more than 300 suspected cases to date, 88 deaths so far. But sure, you might worry that nearly a year and a half into the second Trump administration, there's no Senate-confirmed head of the CDC. Yeah, that may be something to worry about. We've got Robert F. Kennedy Jr.., overseeing the entire Health and Human Services apparatus. And we have a president in charge who successfully managed the last major deadly pandemic. So he's got a lot of experience there. No worries, right? Well, one American working in the Democratic Republic of Congo has also now tested positive for Ebola, according to the CDC. The individual is now reportedly being taken to Germany for treatment. Meanwhile, back here at home, the president of the United States is carrying out the largest public heist of taxpayer money, perhaps in history, right in front of us. With the news on Monday that he will drop his $10 billion lawsuit filed against his own IRS for having leaked a copy of his tax return some years ago, actually it wasn't his own IRS, who was a contractor. Nonetheless, he will instead take nearly 1.8. billion dollars to dole out to his supporters at his will in a way that is unreviewable by courts or Congress, at least according to the DOJ and... The White House. We will be joined momentarily by Robert Weissman, president of public citizen and longtime good government anti-corruption champion to discuss that unspeakable corruption soon. We've also got some election news to get to momentarily, but for our listeners here in our live Southern California listening area today, I want to note that more than last check, 23,000 people have now been ordered as we go to air, have been ordered. To evacuate in Seamy Valley this afternoon, Desi Doyen, a brush fire now threatening homes? Yes, very much so. It's a brush fire. It's under windy conditions, so it is spreading quite quickly. Crews are fighting the sandy fire. That's the brush fire in Seamy Valley. That's a suburban community about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. It is spreading dangerously fast and is threatening homes, officials. It's now about 24,000 people who have been ordered to in mandatory evacuations. The fire began around 11 a.m. and grew to nearly 200 acres within 30 minutes to give you a sense. And it is still growing. School kids are safe. They are sheltering in place at schools. And just on a side note, the Reagan Library, the Ronald Reagan Library. It's on a hilltop in Seamy Valley. It closed on Monday because of a fire now.

They're not in the evacuation zone, but they've closed out of an abundance of caution. So we're keeping our eyes on the Seamy Valley. And I just want to remind everybody to please, fires move quickly. So please follow official warnings and evacuation measures. Also keeping our eyes this hour on another breaking story out here in Southern California, at least three men. We're killed in an attack at a San Diego mosque, according to authorities. That's in northern San Diego. There was three men, as it's being reported right now, this is just breaking within the last half hour or so. Three men killed at the San Diego mosque. Two others found dead nearby in a car, believed to be the suspects, believed to have taken their own lives. So five dead overall in that attack that is currently being investigated as a hate crime. That too, we will keep our eyes on as the hour. I had hoped as well to open the phones today, but I fear with the... Well, so much news, including the new news on Trump's unprecedented $1.8 billion theft of taxpayer dollars that we are unlikely to have time to get to the phones. Nonetheless, I do urge listeners here in Southern California listening live via my local flagship station, KPFK, to take some time today, if you can, to call in to 818985-5735. That's 818. 985 KPFK or go to KPFK.org from anywhere that you may be listening at any time, day or night. Either place to make a donation to our ongoing spring fund drive here at KPFK, we really need your help. More than ever right now, as do all public and community stations for that matter. So if you are listening on one station that is not KPFK, please consider supporting it as well today. Let any of them know that you are a broadcast listener when you do. If you go to the website or anything else, it is greatly appreciated, very much needed right now. As I say, more than ever, this attack on public media community. community media, media that tells the truth, is ongoing via the Trump administration showing no signs of stopping. So please, please get behind your favorite public media station. But of course, it's election season as well, sort of Super Bowl season for Bradblog.com and the brandcast or...

by GOP primary voters on Saturday. Bill Cassidy was one of only seven Republican U.S. senators with the intellectual honesty to vote in the 57 to 43 majority at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, finding that, yes, the... Then President Donald J. Trump did, in fact, incite an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in hopes of overthrowing the U.S. government and stealing the 2020 elections. Yes, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate agreed. But even so... Even though it was a bipartisan majority, a two-third vote is required for conviction and removal from office for president that allowed Trump and his supporters to claim that he was acquitted and somehow vindicated by the bipartisan majority vote against him. In any event, of those seven GOP senators, all but Bill Cassidy, along with Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins, who is up for re-election herself this year, all but those three remain in the Senate now. After Saturday's GOP primary in Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, will no longer be serving after this term. Bill Cassidy. As AP reported, after making the call, was decisively defeated in the Republican primary, unable to convince voters that he deserved another six years after voting to convict President Donald Trump during an impeachment trial over the January 6 attack at the Capitol. He finished behind not just one challenger but two. He finished behind U.S. rep Julia Letlow, who capitalized on the power of Trump's endorsement as the president continues purging his party of people that he views to be disloyal and also behind John Fleming, the state treasurer in Louisiana. Let Loan Fleming will now compete in a runoff on June 27. Bill Cassidy did not even make the runoff despite outspending both of his rivals combined. The result According to AP, was the latest example of Trump's unrivaled power over the Republican Party, even as he approaches the twilight of his second term, with persistent inflation, sagging approval ratings and dissatisfaction over the war in Iran. Unlike some other senators who declined to run, After, again, after crossing Trump, Trump Bill Cassidy pushed hard for his reelection, as I said, spending nearly double the combined amount of his opponents. It was not to be enough, not even to qualify for the runoff, much less to win a third term. Trump cheered that victory on social media, saying, quote, that's what you get by voting to impeach an innocent man.

Presumably he was referring to himself as the innocent man for some reason. The Louisiana primary comes in the middle of a month of campaigns by Trump to extract, I'm sorry, exact retribution on politicians who have crossed him on May 5. He helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who had rejected his order to gerrymander that state. to remove the one remaining Democratic U.S. House seat there. On Tuesday, Republican this week, U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky as part of elections in six states on Tuesday will face a Trump-back challenger there in another Republican primary. Thomas Massie, who is an actual conservative, unlike Trump and most Republicans who described themselves as such, angered Donald Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation over concerns about the fact that it wildly increases the national debt, something that Republicans used to pretend to care about, and especially angered him for joining Democrats in pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files in which Donald Trump is accused of sexually assaulting at least one. 13-year-old girl. After Bill Cassidy's defeat in Louisiana, Trump wrote on social media that, quote, Thomas Massie, a major sleazebag is even worse. He encouraged voters to quote, get this loser, in all caps, out of politics in Tuesday's elections. As far as I know, the so-called sleazebag Thomas Massie has never been accused of having raped a 13-year-old girl. The runoff now in Louisiana between Letlow and Fleming, a former U.S. House member and Trump administration official, will likely determine Louisiana's next sender because the state is a very Republican-leaning state, or at least it has been. In non-blue wave years, we'll see what happens this November. Letlow AP observes had an... unconventional and tragic entry into politics herself. In 2020, she was a college administrator and Donald Trump was at the time mishandling the COVID pandemic. Well, her husband, Luke, was elected to the U.S. House back in 2020, but he died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. He ran for and won the seat in a, I'm sorry, Letlow then ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special. election. She was re-elected in 22 and 24 before eventually winning Trump's endorsement for Bill Cassidy's seat in the Senate this year. On the Democratic side in that election over the weekend, although the state is not among the Democratic Party's priorities for flip this year, though perhaps it should be, three Democrats are vying for that nomination. Nick Albrez.

A former advisor to the state's last Democratic governor, Gary Jasmine Crockett, a businessman and Navy veteran, and Jamie Davis, a farmer who is backed by the state party. Only Davis, for the time being, has now advanced to the state's June 27 runoff primary. That second spot for the moment is still too close to call. with just a few hundred votes separating Albreus and Jasmine Crockett. But while partisans were partisening in all of those contests, statewide voters actually were rejecting all five state constitutional amendments that were placed on the ballot by the state's Republican legislature with the support of the state's Republican governor, Landry. All of those amendments were rejected by the voters when they all voted together. Among the amendments that were rejected by voters statewide on Saturday in Louisiana, a constitutional amendment that would have made it easier to reclassify civil servants in a way that made them fireable. And another that would have raised the mandatory retirement age for judges. making them less replaceable by, for example, a democratic state government were one ever to come to power any time in the foreseeable future in Louisiana. Let's say, for example, amid a blue wave of fury at an entirely corrupted Republican Party, for example. So basically when voters in Louisiana were allowed to vote in a statewide election, not in heavily gerrymandered voting maps, they rejected the Republican Party policies. Yeah. Figure that. That's interesting, huh. Hope somebody in the Democratic Party has taken notice of that. On Tuesday, this week, it is primary election day in Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, as mentioned, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Alabama, though, like Louisiana, Alabama's a U.S. House contest. Four of them in any event have been put on hold by the state's corrupt Republican governor there after the Calais ruling so that that state as well may... right majority black voting districts out of existence with the U.S. Supreme Court now having given them the okay by pretty much killing the entirety of the Voting Rights Act in that ruling. Alabama, where bloody assaults on... Peaceful voting rights activists led directly to the creation of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 has a population that is more than one quarter black, though voters may be left with either one or zero majority minority voting district for the U.S. House out of the state's seven congressional seats after state Republicans are done gerrymandering those maps as well.

to make it as difficult if not impossible for black voters to elect a representative of their choosing for the first time since the end of the first round of Jim Crow in this country. Welcome to Jim Crow 2.0 this year. And so just to clarify again, so basically in Alabama, there is an emergency that requires the suspension of the House primaries, but all the other elections, those are just fine. Yeah, those can go on. No emergency there. All those people who voted in those House elections, never mind those votes, those get tossed out entirely because. That's the way Republicans roll right now. If you hate democracy, you hate democracy. In response to all of that, by the way, over the weekend, thousands turned out in the streets. To protest in iconic Alabama cities across the state. Two Alabama cities became the epicenter of the 1960s civil rights movement were once again in the national spotlight, at least in as much as the nation's news media decided to, well, put a spotlight on them in their coverage, or lack thereof, as AL.com reported it. Thousands traveled to Montgomery and Selma. in a call to action against efforts that they say threaten democracy and fairness. An event that began in the morning in Selma was by afternoon a rally dominating downtown Montgomery. in open resistance to efforts by state lawmakers to change the district maps in a way that will dilute the black vote. Speaking toward the end of the rally, the daughter of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the fight for voting rights is hardly a lost cause even in the face of powerful forces. She said, quote, every blow against justice has historically awakened a sleeping giant. That, according to Reverend Bernice King. She said this moment is our generation's proving ground. And she said the fight would be won without violence, recalling principles embraced and promoted by her father in his day. The last time this nation had to fight major civil rights battles against the undying forces of anti-small-D democracy in our elections. She added, quote, nonviolent resistance is the only path to sustain progress. My father didn't just dream. He disrupted the status quo.

Quote, today is the death of the Confederacy, said Reverend Jamal Bryant, the pastor of the Atlanta area, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, which also has a branch in Birmingham, Alabama, urging young people to take responsibility and continue efforts to secure their rights that began decades ago, noting, quote, I am tired of us just letting older people die. With the torch in their hands, it's time for a new generation to take over. Yes, please. Speaking of a new generation, New York's progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined others in Montgomery over the weekend before the main rally, noting, quote, I am here because our destinies are tied, she said. I'm here because this country. It was built on solidarity, and all of us here are inheritors of the legacy of the civil rights movement, and that also required the freedom and the bravery of the freedom writers who came down to help, support, and assist. So we stand on that legacy, she said, and we're here to stand with you. You are not alone, she said, joining other members of Congress who traveled there as well from New York, Illinois, and elsewhere. The event lasted from... 9 a.m. in Selma to after 4 p.m. in Montgomery, ending with the National Day of Action for Voting Rights Rally. Organizers selected Selma and Montgomery, of course, as a nod to the role that those cities played in passing. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was created to end the disenfranchisement of black voters and to increase... voting participation and representation among black voters and other minorities. On Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, Alabama State Troopers and a local posse violently attacked peaceful civil rights marchers, including a young man named John Lewis, who would become a congressman and civil rights icon as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. More than a dozen marchers were hospitalized that day, including Lewis, whose skull was cracked open by law enforcement. The televised brutality shocked the nation, helped galvanize support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. One of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation in world history, not just U.S. history, but in world history, at least until it was finally undone. by the corrupt right-wing activist majority now on the broken U.S. Supreme Court. So once again, a reminder to our friends in the six states voting this week. Please get out there and vote like your rights and your life depend on it. Evidence suggests it does. And while we don't endorse specific candidates or parties on this program, we do endorse the most pro-democracy candidate that you can find on your ballots. As the struggle for Democratic rights obviously continues today. Let's take a quick break here and we will come back with just a stunning crime in plain sight.

Happening announced today in any event, Donald Trump is stealing more than $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars to give to his friends, including criminals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th on his behalf in their failed attempt to steal the 2020 election or to any criminals that he may wish, including his own family, maybe even himself. Who knows, do we even have any laws anymore? Robert Wiseman of Public Citizen joins us next to hopefully help me and all of us make sense of that news today. If sense can be made of it, I'm Brad Friedman and you're listening to the broadcast. What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. At the broadcast, we do our best to bring you accurate news and analysis on the issues that actually matter, and we do it all independently without corporate or political influence. But we can't do it without you, now more than ever. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to bradblog.com slash donate to help keep us going. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Hey, this is Brad. You're listening to an encore presentation of the Bradcast. Now they're planning the crime of the century. Well, what would it be? Well, I think we can guess. I don't know. Maybe stealing $1.7 billion in taxpayer money from the U.S. Treasury to give to your friends with no oversight whatsoever is the crime of the century. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he's got something else planned. It would. of course, be the crime of the century for any other administration, but who knows? Who knows what else this one has planned for our long national nightmare before that comes to an end. Welcome back to the broadcast. Brad Friedman from bradblog.com. The Trump-controlled Justice Department on Monday announced that it was establishing a nearly $1.8 billion taxpayer-backed, so-called anti-weaponization fund. That as part of an agreement, Donald Trump made with his own Department of Justice to dismiss his own $10 billion lawsuit against the Trump-controlled IRS over the leak of several of his tax returns some years ago. Those returns revealed that Trump paid just $750 in taxes to the U.S. government the year that he first ran for office in 2015. Not 750,750,750. But that was a big year. He paid no taxes at all in other years.

His lawsuit that he now claims to be dropping alleged that it caused him $10 billion worth of damage somehow to his reputation or something. Trump's Justice Department officials announced that he and his co-plaintiffs, which include two of his eldest sons, would now drop their IRS lawsuit as well as other claims of supposed damage in connection with the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, finding that Trump had stolen tens of thousands of pages. of highly classified national security documents when he left office the first time and in connection with the investigation into Russian interference during his 2016 election. The agreement is supposedly, quote, in exchange for the creation of this fund, which Trump's DOJ said they set up a, quote, systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare. The establishment of the fund came just days ahead of a court deadline in the Trump IRS lawsuit, which would have required the administration to explain whether there was an actual case to be heard at all in court, given Trump's control over the Justice Department's actions. The massive fund would give January 6 rioters who were pardoned by Trump a mechanism to seek taxpayer payouts for their crimes, for their claims of government overreach. The fund could even issue, quote, formal apologies to individuals who made claims against the government. According to the announcement, a group of some 93 House Democrats called the move a $1.7 billion slush fund that the president could use to, quote, reward allies, including the nearly 1,600 defendants who were convicted or charged in connection with the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Jonah Goose, Democratic Congressman from Colorado, called the news, quote, one of the most brazen examples of corruption that we have seen from this administration. And that's saying something. The House Democrats litigation task force filed a motion to block what Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, called, quote, pure fraud and highway robbery. As part of the agreement, the Attorney General appointed by Trump would appoint the five members of a commission to oversee the fund, including one member to be chosen in consultation with congressional leaders. However, Donald Trump could remove any member of the commission at any time for any reason he likes. But of course, even if this moves forward and there are challenges as members of Congress are claiming now to what Donald Trump is doing, if there are challenges, legal or otherwise, well, who's going to decide if such a claim is actually true? Donald Trump's corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. Quote, Donald Trump and his compromised Department of Justice have created a slush fund.

To make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies, said Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, co-presidents of the good government watchdog group public citizen, announcing their own investigation into this grotesque scheme that they describe as a, quote, monstrous theft. of taxpayer resources. Joining us now to somehow help make any sense of this at all is Robert Weissman of Public Citizen. He's a longtime public interest advocate, an activist, and an expert on corporate and government accountability whose work at the nonprofit outlet. focuses on the impacts of money on politics, economic and regulatory policy, corporate crime and wrongdoing, and much more, all of which seems to sort of be wrapped up into this crime of the century. Robert Wiseman, welcome to the broadcast, sir. Hey, it's great to be with you. So I must say this is insane. And so much is happening just right in front of our faces that I'm having sort of trouble wrapping my brain around how any of this can actually be even happening. So let me start with your sort of broad overview of what is happening here before our very eyes as you see it. Yeah, I think you did a good job of describing it. I can go back over it, but I also think you're right that the English language does not give us adequate words to characterize this. So just to step back, and as you said, in Donald Trump's first term, his tax returns were released. Donald Trump was president of the United States when his returns were released. There was illegal. But it was under Donald Trump's IRS. Flash forward to the current administration, Donald Trump, president of the United States, allegedly in his personal capacity, has sued the government, meaning the government of the United States presided over by Donald J. Trump, represented by the Department of Justice, which he is clear works specifically and directly for him, is answerable to him and only what he thinks. He sued seeking $10 billion for the alleged injury caused to him, which is just, again, laughable doesn't quite get to it. By the way, let me stop you there for a second. If you sue for $10 billion, don't you need to be able to show that there was in some fashion $10 billion worth of damage against you, your reputation and so forth? Exactly. It's just, it's completely preposterous. There's no evidence of, I mean, he had a privacy injury. But his actual harm his reputation. At the time, he said, he bragged about it. He said it showed how smart he was. So, according to him, actually, no injury whatsoever. And in fact, it didn't hurt him from getting elected president. So the injury wasn't too bad. Yeah. And it's certainly, it probably has no money value at all. And the $10 billion, which is far more than he's personally worth, is ridiculous. But the problem, of course, is besides just that the claim is nonsensical. Yeah.

He's suing himself. So he's on both sides of the case. And as you're describing. That's actually not permitted. So he brought the case and the judge said, what the heck is this? How is the Department of Justice supposed to defend? Or is there even a case here when you, Donald Trump, are on both sides? And the judge was planning to get into the answer of no, there's no case. So they rushed a settlement deal so the judge couldn't interfere. And what they did cleverly was to say, okay, we're dropping the case. Right. This is not a settlement for the judge to review. We dropped the case. Oh, and by the way, we're creating a $1.176 billion fund described exactly as you said. That's 1776 for people who didn't catch that. If there is no settlement. But accurately, except that it's even worse than you said, it's entirely possible for Donald Trump to take some or all this money that's being paid out by this. a preposterous fund. And the terms of the fund itself, which have just been made available, there's a lot we don't know, but a couple of things have just been published. said that because the claims process voluntary, there should be no appeal, arbitration, or judicial review of claims, offers, or other determinations made by the anti-weaponization fund. Right. Meaning, no one can do anything about what this made-up committee does, including giving all of the money to Donald Trump, if they so choose. Robert, let me try to make sense of this because I'm, like I said, having trouble wrapping my brain around it. So they didn't file a motion to dismiss because that then would have been up to the judge and said they just said, we're pulling the, we're dropping the suit. Well, if they're right. Now, they had been talking about this ridiculous $10 billion settlement between the parties that are both Donald Trump, but, you know, Trump as a person and Trump's government. But now, if they have dropped the case. How can there even be a settlement when there is no case? I mean, it seems like Donald Trump and the DOJ are just agreeing to, hey, how about y'all give me $1.776, whatever, billion dollars. Billion, billion. Don't miss the billion in there. Billion, yeah. I mean, there's no suit. How can there be a settlement? How can this be agreed upon? Without approval of somebody, the courts, the Congress? Like, you know, when things are functioning regularly and honestly, there is a judge, so-called judgment fund and the Department of Justice. And they can't make payouts without a whole, without, without a conflict even getting to the courts. Okay.

Of course, so that's how it's supposed to, you know, like many things where Trump is doing, like there's an underlying logic for things to work in regular times. And then you have a corrupt evil force, selfish and grifting beyond belief, turning it inside out and using it for something that no one ever possibly could have contemplated. Which is what this is. Is that what this, apparently the DOJ is citing the $760 million landmark settlement fund that the Obama administration had created to compensate Native American farmers and ranchers who were deprived access to federal subsidies? for decades. So that's what they seem to be comparing this to. This is similar to Native American farmers who were screwed over for decades by the government, except these were violent criminals who tried to overthrow the government and we're going to give them money. But that's the comparison they're making? Your response? Correct. So that's the precedent they're citing. And you're right. They're implying that the injustice. visited upon the Native American farmers, just a small one in the horrible history, is comparable to the injustice inflicted on Donald Trump. However, there's some interesting things about that settlement. One, that settlement actually was filed in court, so it was reviewed by a court unlike this. And when you read through the settlement, actually it goes to length to say, like, we're two separate parties here. We have adverse interest, meaning the government is actually trying to protect taxpayer dollars. We did it. We had an extensive exchange of information. We looked honestly what the value of the claims might be and the validity of the underlying claims. And based on all that, we came up with this settlement. which was then a structure that individual Native American farmers could apply to and receive payment. That is nothing to do with what's going on here, although it is the case that now individuals who claim to be agreed by Biden administration weaponization, including, as you say, the January 6th perpetrators, the proud boys, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump himself, among many others. are now going to make individual claims. Yeah, and Donald Trump himself could be on this so-called commission, as I understand it, so could his sons, and they could, if I'm understanding this correctly, they could choose to give money to themselves as well. Is that allowable under this pretend-made-up idea of a fund that they're creating? Yes. I mean, I, you know, I never want to... You know, it's always a mistake to underestimate the extent of their crass corruption. Yeah. I would imagine that they wouldn't put themselves on the fun, you know, committee, A, because it's probably too boring and B, because.

Why not just put cronies in there? He'll do what they want. But it is correct. They could conceivably put themselves on. And, you know, Donald Trump is a man of unparalleled genius. He's a man of many jobs and functions. And, you know, being on the board to pay himself a corrupt fund based on a... collusive corrupt settlement of a collusive corrupt case that he filed in the first place might be the kind of poetry that he enjoys. Well, he is not very bright, frankly, in my opinion, but he is a genius when it comes to figuring out how to defraud the public and, in this case, the taxpayers. I mean, it occurs to me that, you know, if that commission doesn't manage to give away some of that $1.8 billion, I suspect they would keep it for themselves. Is there anything to prevent them from doing that that you know of, Robert Weissman? Well, the commission has to retire by the end of the Trump administration. And if there's money left over, then it would go back to the Department of Justice. Obviously, the entire incentive is to get the money out the door before Trump is out the door. Gotcha. I mentioned your organization Public Citizen announced an investigation today into what you describe as Trump's quote, proposed slush fund to protect his allies. What sort of investigation is public citizen able to do into any of this at this point? Well, the first thing we're trying to do is figure out more details of what's going on here. So we filed a public records request, asked for it to be expedited, and we'll sue if we don't get a rapid response for all the materials and conversations that surrounded the settlement. So we can understand we do now have the... short settlement agreement. It, you know, on its face, it's nuts, but it does leave a lot of open questions. So we're going to try to get to the bottom of that. So we and many colleagues are trying to figure out, you know, what the heck can anybody do about this? Can what's the ability to sue about it? And one thing we do know, one entity that does have the ability to stop it is Congress. So in upcoming this week fights and thereafter, Congress could make the, could bar the payments to and through this alleged anti-weaponization. But to do that. A, it would have to be agreed to, I presume, in both chambers of Congress, both of which are, of course, led by Republicans right now. And wouldn't any such measure have to then be signed by the president of the United States into law? Correct. So to actually get it adopted into law, I would have to be able to overcome a veto. But it might well be connected to other things in Trump wants, which would make things complicated. I see. Frankly, I like your plan better. I know public citizen has had a lot of success in this sort of thing with the Freedom of Information Act requests. I know you're going to make them to the IRS, the DOJ, the Department of Treasury. What sort of documentation might you find in such an investigation?

do find it? What then? I mean, if, you know, if they're saying, hey, the president wants us to give them $1.7 billion, you know, it doesn't seem legal, but I say we do it anyway. If you find something as, you know, brazen as that in an email between, you know, folks at the DOJ, what do you do with that? What can be done with that? We will share that immediately with the broadcast. Thank you. The people know. People know. I mean, Look, this is a totally unprecedented situation. So you read a quote from Representative Naguze, which I think very considerably understates. It's not one of the most corrupt things of this administration. It's the most corrupt thing. And at least in terms of this kind of personal corruption, it's almost for sure the most corrupt thing in all of American history. Yeah. So we will figure, you know, we're exploring with allies, like, what can we do? It's what I said, right? Is there what possible is it to litigate? What possible is it to get more documents out about it? What can we do in Congress? How could it be caught back later on if it goes into effect in the first place? All that stuff. It may be that, you know, the law is not designed for this because no one operates this way. Right. But, you know, have they found a legal way? to steal $1.7 billion, maybe. If they're so, then we've got to go to Congress and deal with that way. Yeah, and I'm wondering that, you know, who has standing to sue to block something like, I mean, I'm a taxpayer. It's my money. Do I have standing to sue? Does public citizen have standing? Without getting into the convoluted standing doctrine, the answer to that question is no. Robert, I'm barely old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust while he was serving as president. We have yet, you know, related news, I think, late last week that President Trump... has reported thousands of financial transactions, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, including large purchases and sales of tech giants, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta in the first three months of this year alone. That, according to new disclosure forms, filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, showing more than 3,700 transactions. by Donald Trump valued between $220,750 million, cumulatively, and they all happen like just not all, but most of them happened just prior just before a major corporate deal or Commerce Department approval was announced, for example, of the sale of Nvidia chips to China. I would have called that the crime of the century until the news today, Robert. What's your response to this newly unearthed information about all of these stock trades that are timed to apparently insider information by the President of the United States? You know, every grift possible. That's Donald Trump's slogan. And...

You know, the degree to which, we don't know for sure to the degree which he's controlling a stock portfolio, whether it's farmed out. We don't necessarily know that he's making calls to the people who are in charge and making the trades. But there's no reason to assume that he's operating ethically. You definitely know Jimmy Carter. One of, you know, another example in that long list of trades, like he's made, he's made acquisition purchases of Lily. which is now fast racing to become, I think, the first trillion dollar pharmaceutical company on the back of GLP1 drugs that it's selling. And there are a variety of things that the government has done under the Trump administration to expand the market for GLP1. This is like Ozepic and stuff. So that's yet another, yes, there's that plus all the tech plays. And, you know, We don't know for sure that the president was a billionaire before he took office. A lot of dispute about how rich he really is and how much he's puffed up as well. He's definitely a billionaire now because I think the most conservative estimate of how much money he personally has made during the presidency's a billion. Some are estimating up to $5 billion. It's kind of hard to figure out exactly because so much of the money is tied up in cryptocurrency, which is just so opaque. Right. But yeah, this is. It's like literally a thousand times worse than the first administration easily if you measure by dollars. But unfortunately, in the first administration, when this was constant headlines, who was taking out a room at the Trump hotel, the media, and I'm afraid the public to some extent has become a little bit anesthetized to this. But what's really important about it is not just that he's stealing from us and degrading any. ethical standard, but that the things he's doing are fundamentally driving policy. So, you know, he's taking money and the family's taking money and making deals with countries in the Middle East, right? So he's got, gets the plane from Qatar. He has massive investments in the crypto business from UAE. Darren Jared Kushner, son-in-law, is seeking. you know, billions of dollars in investment from Saudi Arabia on top of the billions of dollars he's already managing on behalf of the Saudis. And then, you know, we're prosecuting a war in the Middle East where those same countries are whispering in his ear and pushing towards more aggressive action against Iran and to further, you know, to support Israel and the aggression against Lebanon. And there is no way to separate conduct of our foreign policy, let alone our domestic policy, from the corruption that is endemic in the administration. That's one example, but if you look at what we're doing on AI and how we're treating big tech or what we're doing in the pharmaceutical sector or obviously what's going on in cryptocurrency, where an industry that he once said with a total fraud is now being boosted in ways that are going to really strip lots of wealth from lots of Americans. All these things are policies that are directly tied to the corruption that is the defining feature of this administration along with its cruelty.

to immigrants. Yeah. I mean, when he said he was going to drain the swamp, apparently what he meant was he was going to absorb the entire swamp into himself. Robert, we've spoken with your great government ethics lobbyist Craig Holman many times over the years on this show. You know, we've talked about trying to pass a law to prevent insider training in Congress. Do we need to add the White House, I guess, to all of those measures that we would have applied to Congress? Because it seems like the various things that you've just run through, while unseemly, to say the least, kind of seems like they're all legal. That, in fact, the president can trade based on any information he wants. Are we going to have to, like, make a coterie of laws after this administration and make sure that it applies to the White House? Yes, we are. And this is the case where the White House was the president and the vice president were specifically exempted on the grounds that it was, A, that you would trust the president to do the right thing. And B, that is a little bit complicated to legislate around the president and even some constitutional issues. But, you know, what Trump has showed is that wherever there's a gap, someone is cruel and corrupt as him will find a way to exploit it. So, yeah, part of what's going to have to be done after Trump is. closing all those gaps, filling on all those loopholes. Although, no matter what we do, it's not possible to do everything because something else will emerge. We just have to not elect people who are this corrupt and to hold them accountable. They engage in this kind of misconduct. There's an idea. Of course, then we have to have a better media to make sure that people understand who is and isn't corrupt. And public citizen has also been a champion in that regard as well. So thank you very much. Let me say one thing about that, Brad, before we go. I know Pacific it doesn't take government funding, but you did later make a reference in the pitch before to the cuts in government funding of media. And that's one of the things that this administration has corruptly done, which is strip funding from public media, you know, and then giving it to big corporations or to the rich or to Donald Trump personally himself. That juxtaposition, I think, really underscores the crucial role for truly independent media that relies on community support and doesn't get slammed once some evil government force comes in, like Donald Trump. And that force in this country is Pacifica. It is KPFK. So everybody listening, if those phones aren't ringing now, if people aren't going on online right now, I'm making contributions, please do it because this legitimate source for genuine news and critical commentary is unmatched. It's unmatched in Los Angeles and it's unmatched around the world. And people really need to support the work that you and your colleagues are doing there.

Thank you, brother. I would let you go on and on, but I got to get out. Greatly appreciate that very much. Robert Wiseman, co-president of the always critical public citizen. You can find their work, of course, at citizen.org. You can follow them on the blue skies at public citizen. Robert, really appreciate you joining us today on such short notice, and thanks for all the supportive words and everything you guys do. Thank you, my friend. Great to be with you. All right. We've got to get out. Thanks to our producer, Desi Doyen, to our board operator, Will, and to all of you for spending a portion of your day or night with us. If you missed any portion of today's show or any other, you can download it for free anytime at bradblog.com. You can drop me email. I'd love to hear from you. I'm Brad. I'm Brad at... Who am I? I'm Bradcast at Bradblog.com. Who am I anyway? You can also follow me on the social media as I am the Bradblog. You'll find me there or at our newly redesigned, very cool website, Bradblog.com. That's it. We'll see it all of the above. Until we see you here next time. Hopefully tomorrow, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world.

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