With early voting for the midterms already underway and Republicans growing increasingly desperate, Trump is once again turning to the tactics he knows best to help his party: bribery and threats. He told military families sickened by contaminated water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune that they won’t be compensated unless Republicans win the midterms.
Military Times reports:
Addressing a crowd in Greenville, North Carolina, Trump claimed his administration had already distributed $1 billion in cash settlements to victims of the pollutants. He also pledged to direct the Justice Department to resolve unsettled claims; however, he tied the possibility of future payments to partisan politics. “If we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished,” Trump said amid a slew of attacks on Democrats. He later added, “If we don’t win, there’s no money. If we do win, you’re getting it.” ... The toxic compound has been linked to a slew of devastating health consequences—including deaths—and led to dozens of lawsuits.
Nothing about these payments depends on which party controls Congress. The 2022 Camp Lejeune Justice Act lets victims sue the federal government, and settlements and court awards are paid out of the Treasury’s permanent Judgment Fund, not money lawmakers have to approve each year. So the only way the election could cut off the money is if Trump’s DOJ decides to punish sick veterans for how their neighbors voted.
The GOP has controlled both chambers of Congress for two years, and fewer than 1% of the more than 400,000 claims filed have been paid. Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill to fix the claims process has sat for over a year in a Senate committee, held up by Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
As one military victim and advocate said in response to the president’s comments, “Trying to use veterans and their family members as a pawn to help win an election, I think it’s wrong.”
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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