So, Former President Trump has been indicted for alleged hush money... A dirty little secret that most Americans don't know about, is a slush fund set up by the US Treasury Department, and doled out by the Congressional Office of Compliance to payoff people who alleged misconduct, including allegations of sexual improprieties.
Since there was very little public transparency involving this hush-hush slush fund, it is hard to know exactly how much was paid out to whom...but pay-out they did, with YOUR tax money! The latest estimate had the amount we all paid out of our hard earned money was over $18 million dollars to make people shut up and just go away.
Thankfully a Bill was passed to stop raping the American people of their money to pay for the sexual sins of US politicians, but it took over 20 years and lot of pissed off Americans to accomplish the end of this hush-hush slush fund.
For instance, Black Democrat, John Conyers who was the longest serving black member of the US Congress, admitted that a "reasonable severance payment" was paid out to a former staffer who accused him of sexual harassment. Of course he denied these allegations against him, the money (we don't know exactly how much) was still paid out to his female staff member to shut up and go away. All this cashola was paid by the US taxpayer!
In 2015, Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Republican settled a sexual harassment case brought on by his communications director to the tune of $84,000. Although, Farenthold denies these allegations, WE, the American people paid this HUSH money!
Even CNN admits to the fact the the American Taxpayer has footed the bill for this hush-hush slush fund to make accusers go away! And since all of these alligation were handled internally, no public trial, no transparency, there is no way of knowing if these allegations were true or not...these people were simply paid off to shut up and the American Taxpayer was FORCED to pay for it! By the time this hush slush fund was turned off, in 23 years a total of $18.2 million dollars of taxpayer money was given to so-called accusers to pay them off...HUSH HUSH. But keep in mind, because this slush fund is so secret with little to no transparency, FactCheck.org chimed in on the use of the public piggy bank, "It’s true that the federal Office of Compliance, in a 2017 report, said that between 1997 and 2017, it had recorded more than 260 settlements and awards — totaling more than $17 million. But those cases include more than just complaints of sexual harassment and they don’t only relate to claims against members of Congress." Well, that sure does make me feel so much better, like my hard earned tax money is going to some good causes and not just to scorned women who may or may not be telling the truth.
So this brings me to the fact that for a couple of decades the US Government, internally, secretively and with MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars paid off accusers. There was no government indictments for these payments, no one went to jail and not a single one of these alleged offenders had to use their own money for their HUSH payments. Some of the politicians were guilty and some were not but just wanted their scandalous accusers to go away with a pocket full of cash...taxpayer cash!
The New Yorker wrote a wonderful piece on what is commonly called, "hush money" and it made me laugh out loud.
Sometimes it is just easier to pay off a nuisance then to allow them to drag your name through the mud.
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