Trump Pledges $10 Billion Not Approved by Congress for His 'Board of Peace' Slush Fund From Which He Can't Be Ousted

The so-called Board of Peace is Trump’s attempt to use the wealth and power of the United States government to set himself up in a permanent position of international power from which he can never be ousted—all of it paid for with your tax dollars. But the money he is pledging has never been legally approved by Congress, as the Constitution requires.

Military.com has a good overview, but The New Republic is blunter:

Donald Trump announced Thursday that he wants the United States to contribute $10 billion to his so-called Board of Peace—essentially forming a slush fund of taxpayer money the president can use however he likes. …

Transferring billions of taxpayer dollars would require congressional approval. And Trump has not gotten that.

So far, Trump’s foreign policy has been nothing short of an assault on Congress’s power of the purse. The president has unilaterally declared war against foreign drug smugglers, launching a series of deadly extrajudicial strikes on vessels the government claims—but refuses to prove—are carrying drugs. (These strikes are still ongoing: 11 people were killed as recently as Monday.) Not to mention the massive military operation Trump mounted to depose a foreign leader and steal that country’s oil—all without Congress’s ever declaring war. …

There is one other source of money Trump could potentially dip into. The president previously sold permanent seats on his board for $1 billion a head, but refused to say where that money was going.

Or perhaps the money will come from Trump’s Qatari slush fund for oil money extorted from Venezuela. Either way, this is the signature of Trump’s presidency. He siphons off the power and wealth provided by the American taxpayer for public purposes, and uses it for his own personal advancement and aggrandizement.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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