Legal analyst Andrew Napolitano shocks his far-right Newsmax viewers by admitting that Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to pay the troops with $130 million from a billionaire supporter is illegal.

The corruption has become impossible to spin…

“Well, look, he’s obviously a very charitable person,” Napolitano said of Trump supporter Timothy Mellon. “However, the government can’t spend that money because the Constitution says no money shall be spent from the public treasury but that which has been authorized by Congress.”

“And Congress, in furtherance of that constitutional language, wrote legislation, which is signed into law, which says the Defense Department can’t spend money that are gifts,” he went on. “So the money is probably sitting somewhere, but the government can’t spend it.”

“There’s something called the Anti-Deficiency Act, fancy phrase for a statute that says the government can’t take money from a source other than the Congress and it can’t spend money other than that which is appropriated by Congress,” said Napolitano.

“So I would think that someone in Mr. Mellon’s financial category would have a team of lawyers that would examine this for him and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s another law that they’re looking at, but the basic Constitutional language and the basic federal law say no,” he continued.

“I don’t know what they can do with that money. They can’t spend it under this legislation,” Napolitano added.

The rationale here is easy to understand. The American military should not be funded by a private billionaire because then they would be beholden to that individual. It’s absolutely crucial to our national security that it remain the American people who pay the American military. This rule is especially important in the case of Mellon, who has given tens of millions to Trump’s campaigns, including $50 million to one of his super PACs last year. If Mellon is paying our military, that amounts to Trump paying them, and we cannot allow this fascist president to turn our military into his own private mercenary force.

Napolitano further explained that the “donation” would not be a tax free transaction and Mellon would have to pay $50 million in taxes.

Napolitano also pointed out that the biweekly payroll of the troops is $6 billion so the donation would only cover a “small fraction” of what is needed. The New York Times reports that Trump’s 2025 budget requested roughly $600 billion for total military compensation. Mellon’s $130 million donation amounts to just $100 per service member.

It’s worth noting that Trump himself is the entire reason that the military isn’t getting paid right now. This government shutdown is his fault because he refuses to extend crucial Affordable Care Act subsidies. He controls the government. He owns the shutdown.

The government’s inability to spend the “donation” as intended does raise an obvious question about an administration that habitually engages in graft and theft. Where is the money?

“If the government has cashed Mr. Mellon’s check or if he wired it to them, the question is where are those funds? Because theoretically Pete Hegseth can’t spend them,” said Napolitano.

“If we have a reporter with Treasury Secretary Bessent in the Far East, please ask him, where is that cash?” he added with a laugh. “What happened to the $130 million!?”

One thing is for certain. When Democrats retake control of the government they need to order a full forensic audit of everything that occurred during the Trump years. We are witnessing corruption on a scale that dwarfs anything in the history books.

Please retweet and ❤️ to demand a full investigation!