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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, let me first talk about this DOJ slush fund.

As working families shorten their grocery lists, as they struggle to make ends meet, Donald Trump has added a nearly $2 billion slush fund for his MAGA allies and January 6 insurrectionists to his wish list of pet projects he wants to fund with taxpayer dollars.

Of all the corrupt things Donald Trump has done, this MAGA slush fund at the Department of Justice is one of the most depraved. Trump is shaking hands with himself in order to fund his insurrectionist army to the tune of billions of dollars. Trump is shaking hands with himself, making his own deal with himself, in order to fund his insurrectionist army to the tune of billions of dollars. He is signing a contract with himself to use these funds for illicit purposes.

Can you believe it, America? How low can we go with this President?

Trump pardoned violent insurrectionists who assaulted your Capitol to overturn your votes, and now he wants to give them your hard-earned tax dollars as a reward. Can you believe that? He is taking money out of your paycheck, America, and putting it into the pockets of his cronies, criminals, and cop beaters.

This settlement with the IRS is a farce. Trump sued his own government. He is the President, and he sued the government. He asked for $10 billion--the gall of this man. And then Trump's own Justice Department, with his own appointed attorneys general, settled with Trump. Trump settled with Trump, and now Trump gets a nearly $2 billion slush fund as part of that settlement.

What is he going to do with it? He is going to reward his own allies, loyalists, and insurrectionists. How crooked can it be? How perverted? How slanted? How far away from American ideals?

No President--none--should be able to use the Department of Justice as a personal rewards program for the people who helped him attack our democracy.

Again, America, he sued America for $10 billion, and then he settled with himself and said: OK, I will settle for $2 billion, and then I can use that to aid my cronies.

America, are you listening? What is this guy doing? We have never seen anything like this. Even in the worst and most corrupt administrations we have had, we have never seen anything like this. It is self-dealing. It is corruption. It is abuse of power. And it is happening in broad daylight.

Where are our Republican colleagues when something so abysmal, so low, so degrading to what America is all about--where are they? Shrugging their shoulders: Whatever Donald Trump wants, let him do, even though we know what a bad human being he is.

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