We should know better by now. President Donald Trump cares only about filling his pockets with money he can use to proclaim his own divinity. He's focused. We're not. He can wipe his latest real outrages out of the news simply by creating a new distracting outrage.
This past week has been no different. He has all of our knickers in a twist about the message he sent -- and then said he didn't send -- depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The outrage machine cranked up as usual. To get everyone talking about nonsense he didn't even have to rely on his backup outrage of closing the Kennedy Center. Nothing works like a bit of racism. So, the carnival continues and we forget the real outrage committed.
Remember what it was? Trump wants $10 billion of your money for himself and his family -- naturally only for "numerous very good charities." He has sued the IRS because an IRS contractor, who is going to prison for it, leaked tax returns showing that -- unlike the rest of us fools -- Trump, in the tax returns disclosed, paid virtually no taxes. Now after not paying any taxes himself, Trump wants to take from taxpaying Americans an amount nearly equal to the entire IRS annual budget.
What suckers we are. How cowed and craven Congress is. Have we forgotten how to be outraged or are we simply following the bouncing ball from one contrived distraction to another? Can Trump count on us all to be that stupid? Well, so far so good from his perspective.
There's no reason he shouldn't keep repeating the same old trick he has used his entire life. Trump is the lawfare king. He chiseled and cheated contractors when he was in business and has used bogus lawsuits since his election to a second term to extort millions from the media, law firms and foreign governments.
Now it's our turn. And in case you've forgotten while Trump has been blowing up boats on the high seas, attacking Venezuela and sending an armada toward Iran, this isn't the first demand he has made for taxpayer money. He has already demanded $230 million of your money for the prosecutions against him that ended -- not because they were weak cases -- but because Trump got elected to the presidency again.
The new claim is as lame as the old one. Trump hasn't said how he could possibly have lost $10 billion from having his tax returns leaked. Thanks to graft, Trump's net worth has soared since the disclosures, not shrunk.
The leak was made by an IRS contractor. Federal law says that if you are injured by an IRS contractor, you must sue the contractor, not the IRS as Trump is. The lawsuit turns on his claim that he can prove that the contractor was really an employee. Worst of all, the leak happened in 2020. Trump knew about it and complained bitterly about it at the time. He knew what he needed to sue in 2020. This means the statute of limitations ran out on the claim in 2022, but now, despite his own lawyer's statements in 2023, he claims he didn't know about it until 2024, when the IRS gave him a formal notice. You can be sure of one thing. If you or I brought this suit, we would be tossed out of court.
But not so for Trump. Like all his other cases, it will never get heard. His goal here is the same as with his other bogus lawsuits -- to extort a settlement from the person he is suing. And this time, it's easier than ever. Who controls settling this $10 billion boondoggle? He does, of course, and has laughed in your face about it too.
Will we ever focus on the ball hurtling toward our noses, or will we continue to be distracted by the fight that has broken out in the stands? Trump's entire life has been focused on extorting money from others to build temples for self-worship. So long as we keep valuing all the headline-grabbing outrages equally, we will never hold him accountable for the ones that matter. And that is exactly as Trump would wish it.
Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It.