High Profile Divorcees Air Dirty Laundry in Public*
This Week’s Entertainment Brought to you By Citizens United
As with many high profile divorces, their dirty laundry is on public display. The billionaire bromance between egos so large they can be seen from Mars may be experiencing a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” some have joked, drawing an analogy between their predictable breakup and SpaceX’s last several launches.
Congressional Republicans, who abdicated their oaths in favor of cultish devotion and to avoid being primaried, found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Musk, who sits on the Mount Everest of dark money, excoriated them for having voted in favor of the “disgusting abomination,” Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” of which, Musk alleged, they all should be ashamed. In response, Trump demanded public pledges of continued loyalty. Musk’s views, however, may embolden enough right wingers to create havoc with the disastrous bill.
The damage those maniacal egos have wrought is catastrophic, beginning with what Musk claimed is the but for cause of Trump’s second term which included a “get out of jail free” pass: that cause is Musk himself. The but for cause of Musk’s ability to purchase the presidency belongs to the United States Supreme Court. Creating an exception in 2010, the High Court handed disproportionate First Amendment power and political influence to money. Under Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the reign of financial influence has no limits. See Campaign Finance Reform Is Dead. Citizens United Killed It (Paul Blumenthal, Huffington Post, January 18, 2025); Inside the rise of US oligarchs and how it opened a dark money ‘floodgate’ (Riley Stuart, ABC News, November 20, 2024). But for Citizens United, Elon Musk could not legally have used a quarter billion in campaign contributions to purchase the presidency for himself and an alleged pedophile.
Musk also proudly proclaimed that but for his near $300 million in dark money, Trump would have lost the 2024 presidential election, Democrats would hold the House, and the GOP would be nursing an even slimmer margin in the Senate.
Musk then leveled an attack on Trump that gives us further insight into the depths of his own depravity. He claimed the reason the Trump administration has not released the Epstein files is because Trump is in them.
These two comments in combination are Musk’s admission that he purchased a pedophile to serve as president of the United States.
Musk’s explanation of the reason for the continued classified status of the Epstein files should surprise no one because most people, I suspect, believe evidence of Trump’s -philias and additional criminal activity is detailed in those files. Trump’s explanation for why he reversed himself after saying he would release the Epstein files was among his most self-incriminating displays to date. As the Daily Show suggested, “[w]hen asked if he would declassify the Epstein files, Trump looked more panicked than people in the exit row of a Boeing flight.” Trump stammers through whether he’ll declassify Epstein files. It’s worth the watch.
And Musk’s assignment as a special government employee to lead the ironically named Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) — in exchange for having purchased the election for Trump and kept him out of prison — facilitated Musk’s shutting down a score of federal investigations of him/his companies. He and Trump fired inspectors general, decimated the funding and staffs of investigative and enforcement agencies, changed the guard with unqualified Musk/Trump loyalists, and created fear and intimidation in the few remaining people with oversight. By purchasing the presidency he was also able to assure that his companies continued receiving billions in government contracts, now and into the future without competitive bids. He was also able to hijack Oval Office leverage, it’s been reported, as Trump offered compromises on tariffs to countries that dealt favorably with Musk’s companies, Starlink Services, LLC, in particular.
Elizabeth Warren just published a report detailing “130 unethical or potentially corrupt actions that benefit Musk or his companies.” Her report categorizes the actions into 15 main groups, as follows:
· Official government time and resources have been spent promoting Musk’s businesses.
· Under the Trump Administration, federal government agencies — perhaps influenced by Musk or seeking his favor — have entered or explored new lucrative contracts for his companies and turned to his companies’ services.
· During the Trump Administration, federal agencies have dropped investigations into Musk companies, declined to enforce regulations against them, or foregone penalties that appear to have been warranted.
· Largely guided by Musk’s DOGE, the Trump Administration has hamstrung the agencies overseeing Musk’s companies, gutting their staff, throwing sand in the gears of their operations, and embedding DOGE staff loyal to Musk.
· Agencies have pursued policy changes and regulatory approvals that benefit Musk’s companies.
· Musk received special access to sensitive government meetings, classified information, and proprietary government data that can boost his companies.
· Musk has been involved in selecting and installing personnel loyal to him in agencies that regulate or contract with his companies.
· Musk appeared to redirect foreign aid and immigration policy toward his personal parochial interests rather than the public’s interest.
· Musk companies reportedly use the promise of federal assistance — or threat of federal penalties — to extract better deals from business partners and competitors.
· The Trump Administration weaponizes federal enforcement powers against Musk’s enemies.
· Musk’s influence-peddling in Congress will benefit his bottom line.
· Musk secured deals with foreign nations and companies, often after using his unique access to Trump Administration policy discussions and staff.
· Musk’s family members also receive new business opportunities — soon after Musk becomes top advisor to the president.
· Musk uses his influence to meddle in the political and judicial processes in ways that could help protect his political — and financial — interests.
· Despite his calls for the government to practice “maximum transparency,” Musk has failed to inform the American people of critical information about his potential conflicts of interest.
We’ll have to see how much of this survives the breakup.
As Heather Cox Richardson reported, Musk may be having second thoughts: “Last night, billionaire Elon Musk indicated he would be willing to paper over his fight with President Donald J. Trump, perhaps remembering, as Paresh Dave of Wired noted, that his companies stand to lose $48 billion over the next ten years if they lose their government contracts.”
Musk will have to grovel, which is not beneath him, and even that has little chance of working now that he called for Trump’s impeachment after trashing his “big, beautiful bill” and accusing him of pedophilia.
Some have suggested if begging doesn’t work, Musk may come to regret having attacked the courts over the last several months when he suddenly needs them. Elon Musk attacked the courts. Now they’re his best hope against Trump (Ray Brescia, MSNBC, June 7, 2025).
As entertaining as this is for the hundreds of millions if not billions throughout the world who despise Trump and Musk and hope this destroys their status as public figures with any measure of influence, the euphoria should be short lived, given the potentially irreparable devastation.
This Enemy of My Enemy is Not My Friend
With this falling out, there has been some talk among Democrats of attempting to recruit Musk. As Alex Shephard of The New Republic explains, “[e]mbracing Musk is, even for this iteration of the Democratic Party, a phenomenally stupid and self-defeating thing to do.”
“Yes,” Shephard says, “the feud between him and Trump is good for them. Democrats should help it continue — not by embracing Musk but by . . . letting it continue. ‘Let them fight’ is a well-worn political strategy because it works. Musk and Trump’s feud causes division within the Republican Party, imperils one of the worst pieces of legislation in modern history, and makes everyone involved in it look like a childish idiot. It is literally drawing attention to Trump’s ties to Epstein, which have been well known for years but have never really landed with his base. Every second that the two of them are fighting is good for Democrats. But it’s especially good because they are fighting over the direction of the Republican Party.”
“The big problem with welcoming Musk into the fold is that the political ideology Musk is deploying in his fight against Trump is odious. It is as bad as, if not worse than, Trumpism. It is an agenda that basically amounts to a feudal state: Billionaires like him would have immense power; the federal government would all but cease to exist. Musk wants to slash all entitlement spending and decimate the federal government’s effectiveness. If anything, he wants a government that is even more extreme than the extremist, authoritarian one we have now. Backing him now would also mean providing a life preserver to a small-government ethos that is antithetical to where the Democratic Party should be. It is also a bad idea because Musk is a vile bigot and a loser. He is the billionaire who took away thousands of jobs at home and killed thousands of innocent people abroad. He really, really sucks.
“As it currently stands, Democrats are getting everything they want. Musk is sowing chaos and imperiling the administration and its reprehensible agenda. He is, most likely, going to wake up in a week or two in unprecedented territory for someone who hasn’t been accused of a serious crime (like, say, being a pedophile): He will be loathed by both Democrats and Republicans and have only a small constituency of fellow losers as his admirers. This is good. This is what we should want. He doesn’t deserve to have a place in public life. Let him cause as much damage to Trump as possible, and then stay as far away from him as possible, forever.”
Democrats, Let Trump and Elon Fight (Alex Shephard, The New Republic, June 5, 2025). See also Some Democrats want to reconcile with Musk. That would be a big mistake (Eoin Higgins, MSNBC, June 6, 2025) (“Both he and the president remain threats to democracy.”).
But for Citizens United which is the but for cause of Musk’s ability to purchase the presidency, which is the but for cause of Trump’s ability to nominate Pam Bondi as Attorney General, the Department of Justice would not be thoroughly corrupt (for which the Senate shares but for responsibility by having confirmed her nomination).
Over time, I will post more about Bondi’s corrupting the Department of Justice. Kilmar Armando Ábrego García had been living in Maryland and was legally protected from deportation but HHS nonetheless rendered him to a prison in El Salvador. His return, finally, is a good thing for him and the country, regardless of the outcome of the newly leveled criminal charges against him.
Bondi’s DOJ and HHS had violated direct federal court orders to return him until the U.S. attorney’s office in the Middle District of Tennessee convinced a grand jury to indict García for, as Bondi claimed, being a “smuggler of humans and children and women,” and the government brought him back.
On the day the sealed indictment issued, however, a career federal prosecutor resigned from that office in protest. “Ben Schrader, announced his resignation as the chief of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee in a LinkedIn post on 21 May, the same day the indictment of Ábrego García was signed by the acting US attorney for that district.”
“Sources told ABC News that Schrader stepped down because of concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.
“‘Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee,’ Schrader wrote on LinkedIn that day. ‘It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.’”
Federal prosecutor reportedly quit over concern Ábrego García indictment was politically motivated (Robert Mackey, Léonie Chao-Fong, Lucy Campbell, Tom Ambrose, and Amy Sedghi, The Guardian, June 6, 2025).
This is not the first time DOJ attorneys have resigned in protest or been fired for refusing to engage in unethical, politically motivated conduct as required by Bondi and their supervisors. On June 5, 2025, 70+ Legal Experts Accused Pam Bondi of ‘Serious Professional Misconduct’ in a 23 page complaint to the Florida Bar Association. The gravamen of the bar complaint, which is linked in the article, is that Bondi’
“personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of ‘zealous advocacy’ as announced in her memorandum to all Department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short. She has exerted this pressure even though the Rules of Professional Conduct limit the ‘zeal’ of attorneys to ‘lawful and ethical measures.’ Such conduct violates Florida Rule of Professional Conduct, which makes it misconduct for a lawyer to ‘knowingly assist or induce another … to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct’; Rule 4–5.1, which imposes ethical duties on Ms. Bondi to take reasonable measures with respect to her managerial duties as Attorney General and her supervisory duties over subordinate lawyers to ensure that lawyers in the Department comply with their ethical duties; and Rule 4–8.4(d), which prohibits a lawyer from engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice. . . .
“In the simplest and most alarming example, Ms. Bondi and her deputy, Mr. Blanche, fired an experienced and accomplished attorney, Erez Reuveni, for telling the truth before a tribunal in the case involving Kilmar Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador due to an administrative error, and contrary to a court order that he not be deported to that country. The second example is the forced resignation of Denise Cheung, who had served in the Department for nearly a quarter century, when she declined to open a criminal investigation because there was insufficient predication. And the third example of this pattern of conduct occurred when the Department proposed to dismiss the criminal indictment of Mayor Eric Adams of New York without prejudice in exchange for Mr. Adams’ assistance on immigration enforcement. Because the dismissal was based on an improper quid pro quo, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and almost a dozen other lawyers in that office and the Department’s Public Integrity Section objected to the proposed dismissal. As a result, they were forced to resign immediately or placed on administrative leave and later resigned rather than express regret for the prosecution.
“Through her ‘zealous advocacy’ memorandum and its application in these three cases, Ms. Bondi has sent a message to all Justice Department lawyers that they must disregard the applicable Rules of Professional Conduct, fundamental ethical principles, and longstanding norms of the Department in order to zealously pursue the President’s political objectives — and, if they fail to do so, they will be disciplined or fired. However, as Ms. Bondi and her senior staff are fond of saying, no one is above the law, and this includes Ms. Bondi.”
Except Bondi is above the law, according to The Florida Bar Association. Of note, the Florida Bar dismissed two prior complaints against Bondi who is a member of that Bar on the absurd ground that it “does not investigate or prosecute sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution while they are in office.”
As the third complaint explained, “[t]he Florida Bar’s dismissal is unsupported by history or precedent. As the Supreme Court has held:
“‘Since the founding of the Republic, the licensing and regulation of lawyers has been left exclusively to the States and the District of Columbia within their respective jurisdictions. The States prescribe the qualifications for admission to practice and the standards of professional conduct. They also are responsible for the discipline of lawyers.’
“Accordingly, this policy of The Florida Bar is an abdication of its jurisdiction and its responsibility to regulate the legal profession. Indeed, this policy means that the Bar will exercise no authority over the behavior of lawyers licensed in Florida who happen to be appointed as an officer of the United States. In other words, any such lawyers, including the Attorney General, are professionally unaccountable.
“The Rules not only require that lawyers who are public officials are accountable for their ethical conduct, but they specifically declare that lawyers who are public officials have a higher duty than other lawyers to maintain ethical standards: ‘Lawyers holding public office assume legal responsibilities going beyond those of other citizens. A lawyer’s abuse of public office can suggest an inability to fulfill the professional role of attorney.’ Nowhere in the Rules or Comments is there an exemption for lawyers who are federal public officials. Moreover, the McDade Amendment, 28 U.S.C § 530B, plainly makes Department of Justice lawyers subject to state bar rules. Therefore, we ask The Florida Bar to do its duty and investigate the serious professional misconduct discussed herein.”
I’ll keep you posted.
*My brother the very talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner Rob’s second novel is a beautifully written suspense drama that takes place in Utah, Wyoming, and Norway. This novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel twice and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece.