When Donald Trump was campaigning, he said he wanted to release his tax returns like all previous presidential candidates have done, but that he couldn’t because it was being audited by the IRS. He promised to release his tax returns once the audit was completed.

This was a double lie: being audited does not prevent tax returns from being released, and, in any case, he never released his tax returns. Those returns he had promised to release were subsequently leaked, and for that he has sued his own IRS for $10 billion.

He is currently president, and it appears he has decided to settle his own lawsuit by awarding himself more than $1.7 billion of taxpayer money that he will use to reward Jan. 6 insurrectionists and possibly others. If that isn’t illegal, it should be. It is grift of the most obvious kind. He has effectively stolen $1.7 billion of taxpayer money, money that came from you and me. This is not his only grift, just his most recent. He is, without a doubt, the most corrupt president in American history.

William Sweeney

Bedford