Trump: ‘Maybe John Cornyn is upset with me’
By Sophie Naimi · Reporting from Paris ·
The American political class treats accountability not as a structural necessity, but as an optional expenditure—a line item that can be cut when the optics are bad enough.
The Immunity Clause Is Just Another Sludge Fund
The American political class treats accountability not as a structural necessity, but as an optional expenditure—a line item that can be cut when the optics are bad enough. This week’s skirmish over Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General is less about law and more about the perennial right to impunity. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has made it clear: he will not support Blanche until written confirmation proves the $1.8bn "slush fund"—the provisions shielding Donald Trump and his associates from future IRS audits—is dead. This isn't a policy disagreement; it is a moral reckoning over who gets to pay for their political maneuvering.
The Echo of Circumvention
The pattern, which CNBC reported highlighted, is one of systemic evasion. Trump himself suggested that Cornyn’s reluctance stems merely from the fact that he was not endorsed in the Texas primary. But this misses the point entirely. As The Guardian noted, Cornyn's insistence centers on a provision giving "blanket immunity" for matters beyond the initial settlement. When I read of these attempts to circumvent established legislative oversight—to carve out exceptions for powerful individuals from the rule of law—I do not see novelty; I see historical rot. The mechanism is identical to the Iran-Contra Affair, where senior officials bypassed Congressional appropriations and legal mandates to pursue politically expedient goals. Whether it is funding anti-Sandinista rebels or shielding tax liabilities, the objective remains the same: establishing a private exception to public law.
When Law Becomes a Shield for Privilege
The sheer audacity of treating constitutional oversight like a negotiating chip—a mere point of leverage in a primary feud—is breathtaking. The American system is designed with checks and balances precisely because power corrupts, and the temptation for those at the top to write themselves out of accountability is always present. We are witnessing nothing less than an attempt to institutionalize immunity. This isn't merely bad governance; it is a profound failure of justice that treats law as an accessory to privilege rather than a foundation of society.
The American political machine, when faced with genuine scrutiny over money and power, does not reform itself; it simply finds a more sophisticated way to evade the question entirely. The promise of rule of law, repeatedly undermined by these self-serving exemptions, is nothing but rhetorical smoke designed to mask the fact that the powerful believe themselves above the consequences they generate.