President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “slush fund” is a “multitool for corruption and maintaining MAGA discipline,” argues The Bulwark‘s editor, Jonathan V. Last, suggesting there are multiple ways Trump can use the fund — all involving corruption.

One of the obvious ways is bribery, writes Last. Another way is “more subtle,” he says. “It’s about holding people on side.”

Last reminds readers the president figured out that by using private lawsuits in civil court, he could “legalize bribery and extortion.” He explains, “that’s what his defamation suits against CBS and ABC were.”

“Trump understood that while it might be illegal to go to CBS and ABC and demand that they pay him protection money, he could use a civil lawsuit as justification for creating a private legal contract that amounted to the same thing,” writes Last. “He further understood that if he filed a civil suit against the U.S. government and then became president, he could direct the government to settle with him on whatever terms he desired.”

That’s how the $1.776 billion fund was created.

Last notes that Trump’s fund sunsets — disappears — just before he leaves office, so no other president can use it. But there’s another reason.

“If you were Trump, would you pay out money before your last days in office?” Last asks. “Because I would not.”

He argues that it’s more effective to pay out a few people early during the life of the fund to establish its legitimacy, then stop.

By stopping, you turn the problem of having just “1,700 million-dollar portions” into “tens of billions of dollars worth of promises.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you; you just have to wait a little bit longer,” Trump might say, while those who filed claims could be “thinking that, since he’s going to pay up at the very end, there’s enough cash for them to get theirs.”

That is how Trump can use the fund to solve the problem of being a “politically weak” lame duck president.

“Maybe the POTUS is becoming unpopular, so candidates need to distance themselves from him,” Last writes. “Maybe party elites are thinking about the future and how to take over once the old man is gone.”

The fund offers “the promise of a tangible reward for Republicans to stay on his side. Be nice to him. Do what he asks. Don’t freelance. And maybe there’s a pot of gold for you at the end of the rainbow.”

“It will encourage them to modulate what they say. And within the rest of the Republican ecosystem, having more people on-side than there otherwise would be will have a force-multiplier effect. Seeing people stick with Trump will cause more people to stick with Trump.”

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Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is running for governor of South Carolina while waging a two-front campaign to amend both the U.S. and South Carolina constitutions to bar anyone she claims has loyalties “not to America” from holding office.

Her proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would effectively ban naturalized U.S. citizens from becoming federal judges, or holding seats in Congress or Senate-confirmed positions in the federal government, The Hill reported.

She targeted three Democratic U.S. members of Congress in her statement last week.

“Ilhan Omar. Shri Thanedar. Pramila Jayapal. All born in foreign countries, none were citizens by birth,” she wrote on social media. “All sitting in the United States Congress. All making clear every single day their loyalty is not to America.”

“The people writing America’s laws, confirming America’s judges, and representing America on the world stage should have one loyalty: America. Not any other country,” she added. “For too long we have allowed foreign born members to hold seats in this government while making clear they are America last, not America first. We see it every day. This constitutional amendment will put an end to it.”

Mace did not offer any examples of lawmakers putting “America last.”

READ MORE: GOP Senators Finally Admit the Truth About Trump’s War — Kristol Warns Damage Is Done

On Tuesday, Mace expanded her proposal to include her home state.

She called for “the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, members of the South Carolina General Assembly, Justices and Judges of this State, and all statewide elected executive officers to be natural born citizens of the United States.”

“Every single state across the country should ban foreigners or foreign-born individuals from being governor, from being lieutenant governor, and from serving in state legislatures,” said Mace in a press release.

She acknowledges that one of her current opponents for governor is “a foreign-born candidate.”

On social media, Mace is also pushing her proposals.

“If you want to lead America, you should be from America,” she wrote.

“If the President must be natural born, so should members of Congress. No more foreign-born candidates on the ballot. Americans should run America,” she also said.

“The President must be a natural-born citizen. Why stop there. Should foreigners or foreign-born be allowed to be in positions of power like Congress, Governors, or god-forbid our Judges – YES or NO?” she asked.

The Hill noted that 26 members of Congress are “foreign-born,” with 19 of them being Democrats.

According to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, eight of the 56 signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence were not born in America, 48 were.

READ MORE: Trump’s Texas Endorsement Was Designed to Punish His Own Party: Report

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Writing at The Bulwark, Bill Kristol is pointing to three Republican Senators who over recent days told the truth about President Donald Trump’s war in Iran and possible deals to end it. The longtime conservative columnist who recently became a Democrat calls their remarks a “brief spasm of Republican truth-telling,” and “a step on the road to recovery” but warns that “the damage that’s been done is real.”

U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) on Friday warned that Trump was “being ill advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on. Further pursuit of an agreement with Iran’s Islamist regime risks a perception of weakness.”

One day later, Wicker continued his warning: “The rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster. Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) also weighed in, saying he was “deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’ being pushed by some voices in the administration.”

He called Trump’s decision to strike Iran “the most consequential decision of his second term,” but also issued a warning:

“If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’—now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

Kristol also pointed to “lickspittle extraordinaire” U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who dared to issue criticism.

“If a deal is struck to end the Iranian conflict because it is believed that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be protected from Iranian terrorism and Iran still possesses the capability to destroy major Gulf oil infrastructure,” Graham said, “then Iran will be perceived as being a dominate [sic] force requiring a diplomatic solution.”

Graham also mused, “it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate.”

Kristol answered Graham’s musing: “The war started because Trump and his administration are foolish and reckless and hubristic, and those in a position to check him—like Sens. Wicker and Cruz and Graham—have utterly failed to do so.”

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