Cabinets, Coffers, and Corruption: Trump’s Grift Rolls On

From Ghislaine Maxwell’s bombshell to tariffs that tax the middle class, ICE checkpoints on the highways, Russia’s war crimes, and Trump’s latest spectacles, the rot is spreading faster than his lies.

Good morning! We start with the GOP’s latest attempt at “oversight,” which is a little like putting arsonists in charge of the fire brigade. James Comer, that loyal bagman for the Trump regime, finally issued a subpoena to Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. Not out of principle, of course, Democrats forced his hand. The target is the notorious “birthday book,” the one containing Donald Trump’s alleged bawdy love note to Epstein for his fiftieth. You can practically hear the sweat dripping from Mar-a-Lago’s gold-leafed walls. Epstein’s estate says it will comply, but only with redactions to protect victims. Somehow I doubt the redactions will extend to protecting Trump’s pride.

Meanwhile, in transcripts dug up from Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview with Trump’s DOJ fixer Todd Blanche, a bombshell detonated that no one in corporate media seems eager to touch. Pages 318 through 320, where Maxwell blurts out that “some of you in your cabinet” were part of Epstein’s circle. That’s not ambiguous. That’s Ghislaine Maxwell putting Trump’s cabinet on the flight log. Blanche’s response? Slam on the brakes and change the subject to Bill Clinton. The cover-up is performed in broad daylight, then spun as normal governance.

And when they’re not protecting predators, they’re punishing victims. Trump’s DOJ is deliberately withholding funds from the Victims of Crime Act, money that pays for rape crisis centers, shelters, hotlines, and relocation services for child sex trafficking survivors. The stated reason? States that don’t comply with ICE’s deportation machine don’t get the funds. In other words, Trump is holding therapy sessions for abused children hostage until governors agree to help him disappear immigrants into detention camps. Basically, it’s state-sponsored sadism in service of authoritarian control.

Florida has turned traffic stops into deportation checkpoints, where state troopers double as ICE scouts. One wrong turn signal and suddenly you’re in handcuffs, funneled into Trump’s gulag system. At the same time, in Maryland, ICE tried to snatch Kilmar Abrego García straight from a mandatory check-in, ignoring a federal judge’s ruling that he wasn’t a flight risk. Judge Paula Xinis had to slap the administration on the wrist and forbid his removal, at least temporarily. When federal judges are reduced to shouting “absolutely forbidden” at the government, you know the rule of law is on life support.

On the economic front, Trump decided independence from the Federal Reserve wasn’t enough, he wants total control. So he fired Fed governor Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board, under a laughable pretext of “mortgage fraud.” Her real crime? Refusing to bow to Trump’s demand for immediate rate cuts. With Cook gone, Trump gets another loyalist on the board. Monetary policy is now just another extension of his whims, no more independent than a MAGA rally playlist.

And about those tariffs. Trump struts around calling them a “$4 trillion windfall” for the budget, when in fact they’re nothing more than a regressive tax on American consumers. As economist Justin Wolfers explained on CNN, when Best Buy imports a washing machine from Korea, they write the check. Not Samsung, not “foreigners.” Best Buy. And eventually, Best Buy just raises prices. The import price index hasn’t budged a penny, meaning foreign companies aren’t eating the cost. You are, I am, everyone buying clothes, groceries, electronics. Wolfers put it plain: “It’s a tax on Americans being paid by Americans.” Once again, Trump has managed to rebrand middle-class pain as populist genius.

In Ukraine, a story so raw and brutal it defies imagination: a National Guard soldier named Vladyslav survived five days crawling through hell after Russian troops slit his throat and tossed him in a pit, assuming he was dead. He watched comrades mutilated, eyes gouged, ears and lips cut off, genitals hacked away, before he was the last of eight men discarded like trash. Somehow, he clawed his way back to Ukrainian lines, scribbling his ordeal in a diary because he can no longer speak. His survival is a testament to human willpower; the atrocity he endured is another entry in Russia’s encyclopedia of war crimes. It is impossible to read his story and not recognize what Ukrainians are truly fighting against, barbarism dressed up as empire. Slava Ukraini!

And while all of that was unfolding, the President of the United States found time for three remarkable displays of narcissism and nonsense. First, he turned what should have been a solemn meeting with Gold Star families into a campaign infomercial about tariffs and his own alleged greatness, leaving parents of fallen soldiers wondering if they had wandered into a Trump rally instead of a memorial. Then, in his sit-down with South Korea’s president, he delivered an impromptu “history lesson” about Korea and China going to war “51 times,” a fact he claims came straight from Xi Jinping’s lips. He even tossed in a dismissive remark about Japan’s wartime atrocities, while the South Korean president sat next to him, smiling tightly, no doubt wondering if this was diplomatic engagement or hostage theater. During a White House executive order signing, Trump managed to sprinkle in his usual delusions and culture-war riffs, because nothing says serious governance like treating the Resolute Desk as a prop table for your latest reality-TV bit.

So here we are: Trump’s America, where predators get cover, survivors get starved, immigrants get disappeared, consumers get fleeced, and even Gold Star families can’t bury their dead without being force-fed campaign ads. Abroad, Russia mutilates prisoners and calls it victory. The common thread? Authoritarian cruelty disguised as strength, exploitation passed off as strategy, rot masquerading as governance.

And before we go, an update from the home front: Marz is well and truly on the mend. His surgeon confirmed the corneal scratches are healed, and for the first time in weeks I can say he’s on the other side of this ordeal. We’ve been in and out of the office so often lately that Marz now wags his tail and greets the staff like old friends. A portrait is coming soon, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.