Letters from an American - The Price of Non-Prosecution

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Trump’s behavior on social media gets even more unhinged; he continues to target his political opponents with late night posts which fabricate quotes and use AI. Trump calls news coverage of Iranian military victories "virtual TREASON." Trump leaves for China. No progress on opening Strait of Hormuz. Trump continues to use Iran's nuclear capacity as justification for the war, but his own intelligence agencies assessed Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. DOJ wants to settle $10B lawsuit from Trump. Epstein victim during hearing cites Bondi by name re obstruction. Experts- can’t change name of war, reset clock.Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

May 12, 26. The biggest story in the country, today and always, is that the President of the United States is mentally unwell. Over the course of three hours last night, he posted on social media 55 times. Those posts accused a number of those Trump considers his personal enemies, including former President Barack Obama, of treason, claimed that investigations of the ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives were an attempt to damage Trump, insisted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, reposted a fake quotation from Senator John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana, accusing Obama of making a personal fortune of $120 million from the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, labeled Obama and others traitors and called for their arrest, and demanded to know why acting Attorney General Todd Blanche hadn't indicted any of those people yet. This morning he started in again with a long screed attacking the New York Times

for its coverage of his alterations to the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and insisting that Democratic President's Obama and Joe Biden had botched renovations that he was now fixing for a tiny fraction of the cost. He posted an AI image of Obama, Biden, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California, apparently swimming in a filthy version of the reflecting pool with the caption, Democrats love sewage. Then he posted an image of himself on the $100 bill. And then he was back to calling House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat of New York, low IQ.

After posting a number of AI images showing the U.S. military, destroying the Iranian military, Trump posted, when the fake news says that the Iranian enemy is doing well militarily against us, it's virtual treason in that it is such a false and even preposterous statement. They are aiding and abetting the enemy. Then he posted an image of a map with Venezuela overlaid with the U.S. flag. The caption read, 51st state. Trump seems to be comforting himself by lashing out at his perceived enemies and insisting he is competent and popular. Before he left for China today, he claimed, we have Iran very much under control. We're either going to make a deal or they're going to be

decimated. One way or the other, we win. Moshe Gaines, Courtney Kubay, and Monica Alba of NBC News reported today that if Trump decides to restart major combat operations against Iran, military leaders are considering renaming the operations with a new name, like Operation Sledgehammer, to suggest those operations would be different than the current Epic Fury. They argue that renaming the military operation would restart the clock of the 1973 War Powers Act that requires congressional authorization to continue it after 60 days, a deadline that ran out on May 1st. War Powers Act expert, Brian Fenucan, who was a lawyer for the State Department, commented, Nope, changing the name of the authorized war with Iran does not alter the application of the War Powers Resolutions 60-day clock.

In the meantime, there is no apparent movement toward open, the Strait of Hormuz, even as numbers released today by the Department of Labor show that inflation in April hit its highest level since 2023. Trump's own intelligence agencies assessed earlier this year that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Iran's leader had not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003. An assessment from the Defense intelligence agency said that Iran would not be able to reach the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile until 2035. Nonetheless, the administration and its supporters appear to have settled on the idea that the cost of the war has been worthwhile because the U.S. was under imminent threat

of nuclear attack by Iran. When a reporter asked Trump today, before he left for China, to what extent Americans' financial situation is motivating him to make a deal with Iran, he answered. Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. A CNN SSRS poll released today shows that 70% of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy. Trump is, however, thinking about his own financial situation. Tonight, Andrew Duren and Alan Fuhr of the New York Times reported that the Department of

Justice is in talks to settle Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for damages after a contractor during Trump's first term leaked tax information. including his, to the media. The judge in the case has ordered Trump's lawyers and the Department of Justice to file briefs by May 20th, explaining why this is a true case in which the two sides are opposed when Trump both is the plaintiff and runs the agency that is the defendant. If they settle before then,

the judge will not be able to say much about whether the case was valid in the first place. Duren and fewer note that the department, Department of Justice has fought similar cases brought because of the leak, arguing that the government can't be held liable for something a contractor does. The government settled a case with hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin in 2024 by making a public apology. The New York Times journalists report that one of the options for settling with Trump would be for the IRS to drop any audits of Trump, his family members, or his businesses. Since 19, The 1997 IRS policy has been to conduct a mandatory audit of the sitting president every year,

although it failed to audit Trump's taxes for his first two years in office during his first term. Clearly, he would like for it to fail to audit his taxes this time around as well. The special treatment certain people enjoy in the U.S. that enables them to get around accountability was in the news earlier today, too, as the victims of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein testified before a panel made up of the Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The top Democrat on the committee,

Robert Garcia of California, began the day by introducing a new report called The Price of Non-Prospection. It explained that the Sweetheart Deal U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, later Trump's secretary of labor, negotiated with Epstein to protect him from federal prosecution, left him able to continue his sex trafficking operation and to expand it.

The survivors recounted their anger and frustration when they discovered the federal government had made a secret deal with Epstein. One survivor, who identified herself as Rosa, detailed how Epstein sexually assaulted her over three years when he was supposed to be serving a jail sentence. She broke down as she recounted how the Department of Justice under then Attorney General Pam Bondi continued that favoritism, exposing her name publicly while leaving the names of the perpetrators redacted. I stepped forward along other survivors, hoping those who would like, this to happen will be held accountable. I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day

with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world. Now reporters from across the globe contact me. I cannot live without looking over my shoulder. I can only imagine the long-finding. The long-time, term impact this mistake will have on my life. In Tennessee today, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton removed all the House Democrats from standing committees, saying they had behaved in a way aimed at disrupting the Democratic and legislative processes as they protested the mid-decade redistricting that broke up Tennessee's only majority black Democratic district.

As Tennessee State Representative Justin J. Pearson notes, this decree removed every black elected official in the state legislature from any committee we served on and stripped nearly two million Tennesseans from the representation they deserve in the Tennessee state legislature. We will not stop fighting, State Representative Justin Jones posted. we will not stop getting in good trouble. We will not go back. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.