Lawrence: It's too late for Trump to kill the $1.776B political monster he created

[0:00] Dead for now. Dead for now was the first report today about Donald Trump's slush fund of one point seven, seven, six billion dollars that he was planning to give to people who were convicted of crimes against the United States of America in their attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, to try to overturn a presidential election for Donald Trump, to try to kill police officers on the way to doing that and to try to kill the vice president of the United States while they were at it. [0:31] Donald Trump wanted those people to get money from the federal government. And now, dead for now, dead for now, through Donald Trump's criminal insurgency group that attacked the Capitol on January 6th. [0:49] Dead for now are the words of an unnamed White House source who told Mark Caputo at Axios, it's dead for now. But for the Democrats in Congress opposing the Trump slush fund, it is not dead enough. [1:05] And very much to Donald Trump's surprise, I'm sure. In fact, I'm sure he doesn't realize this even now. It is not dead enough for Donald Trump either. It's still alive enough to cause Donald Trump serious legal problems now of his own. [1:24] Because the incompetent buffoons around Donald Trump who call themselves lawyers in the Trump Justice Department and in the White House and the lawyers who represent Donald Trump personally, [1:34] they, because they have appeared to have wildly outsmarted themselves in putting Donald Trump in serious legal trouble now with a federal judge, [1:45] the kind of legal trouble that Donald Trump's Supreme Court did not spare him from in their decision granting Donald Trump criminal immunity for possible crimes that he might commit as president. [1:56] Supreme Court didn't foresee this situation and couldn't protect him from it. The Trump slush fund accompanied by a Justice Department promise that the IRS would never be allowed to investigate any possible Trump tax crimes that Donald Trump and his family may have committed up to now was the single most preposterous development in Donald Trump's litigation history, [2:22] which is full of preposterous developments. And now it looks like the Trump lawyers on all sides of that one went way too far. [2:34] Donald Trump pushed it so far that Republicans turned against him in the House and in the Senate. [2:40] And the Republican Speaker of the House reportedly told Donald Trump today that the Republican House would vote against Donald Trump's slush fund settlement if it comes to a vote in the House. [2:49] And so it's dead for now, which means that Donald Trump's political power in the House of Representatives is also dead for now. [2:58] Donald Trump's political power in the Senate on this issue was already known to be dead. [3:04] The Senate Republican leader, John Thune, had said all along that the Trump slush fund was not a good idea. [3:10] And as time went on, John Thune became more and more clear that he personally was against it. [3:15] And then Chuck Schumer promising to bring up votes in the Senate on Donald Trump's slush fund. [3:21] Last week, Republicans in the Senate in a private meeting attacked Donald Trump's acting attorney general, [3:28] who used to be Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, who created the Trump slush fund. [3:35] Those Republicans in the room, some of them said that it was the harshest questioning of an administration official [3:41] that they have ever seen in any closed meeting in the Senate. [3:46] But it's already too late for Donald Trump to easily kill the $1.776 billion political monster that he created. [3:58] It's too late. [4:00] Senate Majority Leader John Thune was not satisfied today with unnamed White House staffers saying it's dead for now. [4:08] Does the administration need to be, if they drop this, that it's not coming back, [4:14] so that those Republicans who were skeptical during that briefing feel okay for them to proceed? [4:20] That would be, that would be the ideal outcome. [4:25] The ideal outcome is dead forever. [4:29] There's the Republican Senate leader, John Thune, saying the ideal outcome is for Donald Trump to come out [4:34] and officially say it is dead, not just for now. [4:37] It is dead and never coming back. [4:39] And while he was at it, John Thune said the other thing that is dead in the Republican United States Senate [4:46] is the Trump ballroom. [4:48] What Senator John Ossoff this weekend called the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom. [4:54] I think that confining the bill to its original intent, which was a very narrowly focused reconciliation bill [5:10] that just addresses the funding for those two agencies, is the clearest path to ultimately getting a bill on the president's desk. [5:18] So no, the Trump ballroom will not be in the Republican reconciliation bill. [5:25] John Thune saying the Republican Senate will not be voting for the billion dollars Donald Trump wants from them, [5:33] for what Senator Ossoff will be calling the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom [5:39] if a vote on the Trump ballroom occurs on the floor of the Senate. [5:44] Donald Trump is politically radioactive now, and Republicans in the House and Senate know it. [5:49] The Republicans in the House and the Senate know that their worst enemy in the coming elections in November is Donald Trump. [5:59] And Democrats in the Senate and the House have reason to believe that the enormity of Donald Trump's corruption [6:05] and the corruption in his administration is getting through to voters [6:09] and could build, be a decisive issue in November. [6:15] And the problem for Donald Trump and the Republicans is that even if Donald Trump comes out right now [6:22] and says the magic words that John Thune wants him to say that the Trump slush fund is dead and dead forever [6:29] and the ballroom is dead with it, it is now beyond Donald Trump's powers [6:35] to stop the investigation of his slush fund that two federal judges have undertaken [6:42] with one judge ordering a hearing on the subject next week on June 12th. [6:48] That is the federal judge in Virginia who last week ordered a complete stop to any and all activity [6:53] involving the establishment or operating of the Trump slush fund. [6:58] But the possibly more difficult legal problem for Donald Trump now is that Judge Kathleen Williams [7:06] in the Southern District of Florida is using her unique power as a federal judge [7:11] to investigate not just Donald Trump's lawyers at the Justice Department [7:15] and Donald Trump's personal lawyer, but also Donald Trump himself. [7:22] Donald Trump filed his case against the Internal Revenue Service in federal court [7:27] in the Southern District of Florida in the hope of getting one of those Trump-friendly [7:32] Florida federal judges down there, which can happen because judges are randomly assigned. [7:39] Instead, Donald Trump got Judge Kathleen Williams, who was appointed to the federal court [7:43] by President Barack Obama. [7:46] And last week, in response to a motion by a group of former federal judges to reopen the Trump case [7:53] against the IRS to investigate the legitimacy of the so-called settlement of that lawsuit. [8:00] The judge decided to do exactly that, saying that something extremely threatening [8:07] to Donald Trump's acting attorney general and to Donald Trump was possible here. [8:14] The judge wrote, [8:15] A court is empowered to investigate serious misconduct as a collateral issue [8:20] within the purview of Rule 11 and determine whether an attorney has abused the judicial process. [8:29] It is very clear that attorneys abused the judicial process in this case, [8:34] and so all of those attorneys are in serious trouble tonight. [8:38] The judge said, [8:39] Under Rule 11, a court may impose sanctions on a lawyer for advocating a frivolous position, [8:46] pursuing an unfounded claim, or filing a lawsuit for some improper purpose. [8:54] The Trump lawyers know that a White House source simply telling Axios that it's dead for now [8:59] does not get them out of trouble with this federal judge. [9:04] But the next line of the judge's order on Friday is a direct threat to Donald Trump himself. [9:14] Donald Trump is not a lawyer in the case who can be disciplined as a lawyer, [9:18] but Donald Trump is a party to the case. [9:22] He is the party in the case. [9:24] He is the party who actually brought the case against the Internal Revenue Service, [9:30] giving the case the title, [9:31] Donald J. Trump versus Internal Revenue Service. [9:36] And about Donald J. Trump, the judge wrote this, [9:40] A party's decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement [9:47] may qualify as such an improper abuse. [9:51] If a party files a lawsuit for an improper purpose, [9:57] the court may impose an appropriate sanction on the responsible party. [10:04] So here is a federal judge who now has the power, [10:09] depending on the outcome of her investigation, [10:11] to impose a penalty on Donald Trump for doing all of this. [10:17] The judge gave Donald Trump until June 12th, next week, [10:22] to answer this question in writing, [10:26] quote, [10:27] of whether the case should be reopened because the court was the victim of a fraud. [10:36] Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuaid will join us later in this hour [10:39] to consider what's coming for Donald Trump in court because of the legally perverse [10:44] and obviously indefensible so-called settlement Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer [10:50] forced the Justice Department to make with his former criminal client, Donald Trump. [10:56] The stink of it all has reached the point where Senator John Ossoff this weekend [11:03] could refer to the whole complex of Trump corruption as the Mar-a-Lago mafia. [11:10] And it is too late for someone in the White House to simply declare Donald Trump's slush fund dead for now. [11:15] It's too late for Donald Trump to reverse the overwhelming image of corruption [11:20] on a previously unimaginable scale in the presidency. [11:25] This is the last one. [11:26] Let's see. [11:27] This is the last one. [11:28] This is the last one. [11:29] This is the last one. [11:30] This is the last one. [11:31] This is the last one. [11:32] This is the last one. [11:33] This is the last one. [11:34] This is the last one. [11:35] This is the last one. [11:36] This is the last one. [11:37] This is the last one. [11:38] This is the last one. [11:39] This is the last one. [11:40] This is the last one. [11:42] This is the last one. [11:43] This is the last one. [11:44] This is the last one. [11:45] This is the last one. [11:46] This is the last one. [11:48] This is the last one. [11:49] This is the last one.