Trail Notes
Jan 6th rewrite / West's new bully / Cashing in in Venezuela / Trump fan scores big / Mystery bet / GOP Supremes favor rich / Interior conflict / No honor among MAGA
Rewriting January 6th Capitol riot history
Sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to Donald Trump spitting out lies like popcorn stuck in his teeth. During his rambling speech to House Republicans on Tuesday, he told 18 of his favorite provably wrong whoppers, according to Daniel Dale, CNN’s reliable fact checker.
But another thing happened this week, a darker drift into deception. On the official White House website there appeared a Trumpian version of what occurred before, during, and after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The headlines alone make it clear just how this administration wants that day to be misremembered: “Patriots March to Capitol,” “Mike Pence Refuses to Act,” “Stolen Election Certified,” and “President Trump Silenced.”
The text plunges deeper into alternative history. It blames law enforcement agencies and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for causing and escalating the riot. It portrays the insurrectionists who smashed police with flag poles and covered them in bear spray as “peaceful protesters.” It accuses former Vice President Mike Pence of “cowardice and sabotage” for not going along with the plan to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election. And, of course, it states unequivocally that the 2020 election was rigged and glorifies Trump as a hero for pardoning all those folks who appeared to be rioting in the videos we’ve all seen. In the Trumpian alternative reality show, they were the victims.
The president doesn’t like it when critics call him a dictator, but rewriting history on official government platforms, well, that is exactly what dictators do.
Western Hemisphere’s new bully
So, who’s next? Now that, thanks to the U.S. military, Venezuela is open for business, where will Donald Trump turn to get another notch in his swagger belt? Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Cuba “is in a lot of trouble.” On Sunday night, when asked if Colombia might be next, the president cracked, “Sounds good to me.” Mexico would seem unlikely, but earlier Sunday Trump declared, “Something has to be done with Mexico.” Then there’s Greenland. During an interview last weekend, the president insisted, “We do need Greenland. Absolutely.”
Of course, some of this is Trumpian bluster. But it’s still a sharp 180 degrees from his campaign pledge to avoid foreign entanglements. The White House, however, has found a loophole. It’s suggesting that because all the countries on the hit list, aside from Greenland, are in our hemisphere, they’re not really “foreign.” As Vladimir Putin himself would put it, they’re in our “sphere of influence,” meaning that since they’re our neighbors, we have a right to treat them in a way that Mr. Rogers definitely would have found not cool. (For more on Trump’s Venezuelan misadventures, see “Donald Trump, Rough Rider.”)
Cashing in in Venezuela
Now that it’s clear that last Saturday’s attack on Venezuela was way more about oil than drugs or democracy, U.S. businesses are looking for ways to cash in. A group of investors announced that it will be traveling to Venezuela in March to explore what was described as potentially “massive” business opportunities, not just in oil, but also in infrastructure and tourism.
While there’s still plenty of political and economic risk involved, companies in those businesses saw their stock values soar on Monday. The stock price of Chevron, the only U.S. oil company still operating in the country, jumped 5 percent, while Halliburton, which provides equipment and services for oil extraction, saw its stock spike 11 percent.
A Trump booster’s big score
A billionaire Donald Trump booster could land a windfall from the projected oil rush in Venezuela. In November, Paul Singer, through his private investment firm Elliott Investment Management, purchased Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company.
With an estimated personal net worth of $6.7 billion, Singer has been more than happy to throw millions Trump’s way. In 2024, he donated $5 million to Make America Great Again, Inc., the president’s Super PAC. That’s in addition to the $37 million he contributed to the campaigns of Republicans running for Congress, and an undisclosed amount to help fund Trump’s transition. Plus, last June, when Trump was looking for people to bankroll a primary opponent of Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie—the president’s Republican nemesis in Congress—Singer came through with $1 million, the largest contribution to the unsuccessful challenge.
Mystery bet pays off
Last Friday, a new account in the prediction market Polymarket bet $32,000 that Nicolás Maduro would be arrested before the end of January. When the Venezuelan president was taken into custody less than 24 hours later, the anonymous investor made $436,759.61. Not bad for a day’s work.
GOP-appointed Supremes favor the rich
New research by economists at Columbia and Yale has found that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican appointees are now much more likely to side with wealthy parties in cases before the court than they were years ago. The report, titled “Ruling for the Rich,” categorizes parties as rich or poor “according to their likelihood of being wealthy” and a justice’s vote as favoring the rich “if its outcome would directly shift resources to the party that is more likely to be wealthy.” It turns out that Republican appointees sided with wealthier parties 70 percent of the time in 2022, but only 45 percent of the time back in 1953.
Conflict of interest at Interior
Lost in all the speculation about which country the United States should try to fix next or how many more months it will take to release all of the Jeffrey Epstein files is the tale of Karen Budd-Falen. She’s currently third in command at the Interior Department, the same agency where she held the position of deputy solicitor during Trump’s first term.
Back in 2018, Lithium Nevada Corp. wanted to build a $2.3 billion mine, a project that required a huge amount of water. It turned out that Budd-Falen’s husband, Frank, was able to provide that water from his nearby family ranch, But the deal that would make Falen $3.5 million was contingent on permits approved by the very agency where his wife worked.
Budd-Falen agreed to meet with Lithium executives for lunch in the Interior Department’s cafeteria. Her husband insists that it was strictly a social meeting and they didn’t discuss the proposed deal. But near the end of Trump’s first term, the project was granted fast-track approval, allowing it to bypass lengthy environmental reviews. Now questions are being raised about Budd-Falen’s failure to disclose her family’s financial interest.
No honor among MAGA
A plaque honoring the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, riot has yet to be installed. It’s reportedly hidden away in a Capitol basement utility room. Last spring, Thomas Austin, the architect of the Capitol, told a House subcommittee that he was waiting for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s instructions for mounting the plaque. But Johnson wants to avoid raising the ire of a president who considers his supporters who attacked those officers “patriots.” So, the plaque, which Congress approved nearly four years ago, sits in limbo.
Two officers have sued to have the plaque finally displayed. The Trump Justice Department is fighting them in court.
Randy Rieland is a former columnist at Smithsonian magazine, website director at the Discovery Channel, and senior writer at Washingtonian magazine.
Money Trail is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 30-0100369. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.