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ale5

Trump has set up a legal defense fund for his White House that gives Russians and other illegal donors the ability to cover his legal fees.

 “The 49-page charter is a lush garden of legal formalities that conceal the fund’s minimal consideration of ethical safeguards. No firewall prevents the president from bending the manager’s ear about who should or shouldn’t receive the fund’s largesse. Nor is the manager required to seek any guidance from ethics officials to determine if donations come from prohibited sources.”, Walter Shaub wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

The fund, which will reimburse legal fees stemming from the Russia investigations, represents a radical and dangerous departure from established practice for government-employee legal defense funds. It's formulated under, of all things, an IRS designation for political organizations. Even its name, the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust, echoes the tribal politics of our time. The name may suggest something more sinister still, that the cash is for "patriots" loyal to the president.

It seems to me that such fund would be completely unethical and undermines all of our legal and ethical standards.  

Source:

Trump Starts A Legal Defense Fund So That Russians Can Cover His White House Legal Fees

By Sarah Jones on Fri, Feb 9th, 2018 at 12:57 pm

http://www.politicususa.com/2018/02/09/trump-white-house.html

Trump's Ethics Office has blessed an unethical legal defense fund for the president's associates

By WALTER SHAUB

FEB 09, 2018 | 4:05 AM

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shaub-patriot-fund-20180209-story.html

ale5

The structure of this fund is nothing like other precedents we had.  Other legal defense funds for government workers — for example, those set up for President Clinton's staffers when he was under investigation — have been structured as trusts for one employee at a time. In such trusts, the money collected can only be disbursed to that single beneficiary. It can't be used to favor or shun potential recipients based on what they may or may not reveal to investigators.
This new Trump fund, however, can go to any of the White House staffers, campaign workers or other Trump associates who get caught up in the Russia investigations.
The control language of this fund removes any transparency how pay out decisions are made, essentially making it a black box and letting Trump pay off whomever he wants.
That is completely unacceptable to have such a legal technicality, allowing to fund a major cover up.

islander507

Idea of coverup and conspiracy theory is ridiculous.  Even more ridiculous is accusation that this fund is setup to deliberately let Russia fund it.  There are many people caught up in this unfortunate fiasco that was planned by Obama administration, and there needs to be a legal vehicle to cover those expense.

agsr

This document posted on  the Office of Government Ethics website.
https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/All Documents/C84BE191420FD2A585258227004EFCC2/$FILE/Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust, LLC.pdf?open

I think that jumping from merits of setting up this fund to accusing Trump of corruption and purposeful intent to take Russia payoffs is way of a stretch.

CYDdharta

Other special councils have been more restrained in their prosecutions.  Since Mueller's persecutions observe no such restraint, a more comprehensive method of defense is warranted.

WhyTrump

@CYDdharta, regardless of prosecutors aggressiveness, there should be transparency on setup of such a fund.  We can't just have arbitrarily payments going out and funding from whatever source.  There is no way for us to stop Trump to use this fund as a payoff machine.

CYDdharta

WhyTrump said:

@CYDdharta, regardless of prosecutors aggressiveness, there should be transparency on setup of such a fund.  We can't just have arbitrarily payments going out and funding from whatever source.  There is no way for us to stop Trump to use this fund as a payoff machine.

The prosecutor should limit his investigation to the reason the investigation was started; in this case, possible Russian collusion in the 2016 election.  Since the persecution is taking leeway and indicting people for things that have absolutely nothing to do with the election, then the defense should likewise be afforded leeway.

Vaulk

No shortage of anti-trump propaganda in light of the Memo that exposed the first ever attempt at Presidential election rigging by the DNC.