By Deroy Murdock | Commentary, The American Spectator
Few things nauseate conservatives more than watching wobbly Republicans do the Democrats’ dirty work.
GOP senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina lately have delivered for the Left. They repeatedly threatened to drop an anvil on Todd Blanche, President Donald J. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, unless Blanche killed what Democrats called Trump’s Revenge Fund. The Left instantly denounced Trump’s patriotically branded $1.776 billion allotment for victims of weaponized government. Predictably, Democrats deployed their rustiest cliches: Trump arranged bonuses for his “loyalists” and those involved in “January 6.”
Democrats predictably cough up the same exhausted lines. They are malicious, brain-dead, and have absolutely nothing positive to offer the American people. So, they channel their Trump-hating bile and put their mouths on autopilot.
Maddeningly, Cornyn and Tillis did likewise. “It’s befuddling to me,” Cornyn said of Trump’s program. The less-tactful Tillis attacked it as “a payout pot for punks” and “stupid on stilts.”
Cornyn and Tillis have little love for Trump. He endorsed Cornyn’s victorious primary opponent, Ken Paxton. Tillis has irked Trump by repeatedly stymying the SAVE America Act and other policies.
Trump’s real goal: To provide justice to those who lost their fortunes or freedom due to weaponized law enforcement.
However, these Republicans should understand Trump’s real goal: To provide justice to those who lost their fortunes or freedom due to weaponized law enforcement.
Cornyn and Tillis prevailed. Blanche on Monday delivered the $1.776 billion fund’s death certificate.
Regardless, Trump deserves credit for trying to do right by those whom the feds have done wrong. The good news is that the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund is alive and well. Since 1956, it has settled with and paid parties whom Washington has harmed. This well-established mechanism, enshrined in 31 U.S.C. § 1304, is ready to fly where Trump’s initiative floundered.
The Judgment Fund should recompense those whom the Left persecuted during the three-year-long Russia Hoax. On Friday, via Truth Social, Trump called these people “the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration.”
“Perhaps there has never been a group of people treated so badly in our Nation’s history,” Trump continued. “They are suffering still, many ruined, and I felt that they should be given compensation for what has been done to them…I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!”
Here are just a few of those ruined lives:
Luba Avrashov appears with her late husband, Lee, in their last picture together, at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Triumph of Liberty Gala Dinner — Washington, D.C., 2017 (Courtesy of Luba Avrashov)
Luba Avrashov
Lee Avrashov’s widow knows few specifics about her late husband’s meetings with the Justice Department. “He was warned that sharing this information with anybody was punishable by law,” Luba Avrashov told me. Regarding baseless accusations that he helped the Kremlin subvert the 2016 election, Luba said, “He was deeply ashamed of the situation, and it struck at his pride and dignity.”
She recollected watching an evening-news story on the Russia Hoax. “I urgently need a lawyer,” Lee told Luba. “Almost immediately, the phone started ringing with calls summoning him to questioning. From that moment on, his life — and ours — was turned upside down.”
Russian-born U.S. citizen Leonid Avrashov’s apparent “crimes” were that he was associated with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, and that he had a credit card from First Ukrainian International Bank. Its owner is multi-billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, reportedly Ukraine’s wealthiest man.
“I would often wake up in the middle of the night to find Lee pacing the house, unable to sleep,” Luba recalled. Her husband fretted about providing for his wife and their two young children as the DOJ’s grip tightened. “His appetite disappeared. He grew nervous and irritable, and I could see the stress consuming him.”
“We had no money for a proper lawyer,” Luba added. “I remember receiving calls from the bank about overdue payments on our house; foreclosure and eviction were real threats…He borrowed money from friends — at least three that I know of. I am aware of one debt of $17,000 alone.”
As matters deteriorated, Luba explained, “He secretly took a night job delivering pizzas. He borrowed a friend’s car so that no one would recognize him. It was humiliating for him, and he asked me not to tell the children. He came home exhausted, complaining of pain in his leg — a sign, we later understood, of a developing blood clot.” That’s when Lee’s severe, stress-related health problems began.
Luba believes that the “crushing pressure” from what Lee called “not just debts, but enormous debts” caused or at least accelerated his untimely death in April 2021.
“My husband just turned 61 when he passed away,” Luba mourned. “It was colon cancer, but it was not the primary illness. Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener’s granulomatosis) developed because of severe stress.” According to an October 2024 study by Sichuan University’s Qing Li, MD, PhD, “Cutting-edge research has uncovered how chronic stress disrupts the balance of gut microbiota to speed up the progression of colorectal cancer.”
The Russia Hoax seemingly made Lee Avrashov worry himself right into the ground.
“The legal ordeal and the debts he took on left lasting damage, both financially and emotionally,” Luba summarized. “Every sleepless night, every dollar borrowed, every humiliation he endured was the product of an investigation that was manufactured from the start. There was nothing there. He did nothing wrong. And yet he was hounded to his grave.”
Michael Caputo appears in a screenshot from his legal fund’s website, 2018 (Courtesy of Michael Caputo)
Michael Caputo
“I was interrogated by House and Senate intelligence committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team,” my friend of 41 years, Michael Caputo, told me. “I was never subpoenaed nor charged. I was only a ‘witness.’ But my lawyers told me it was clear that my chief tormentor, DOJ’s Andrew Weismann, was always trying to upgrade my status to a ‘subject of the investigation’ and even a ‘target,’ if he could.”
This ordeal cost Caputo a bundle. “I paid attorneys about $580,000 for Democrat Russia Coup interrogations and related legal issues,” he detailed. “I raised money from hundreds of wonderful donors I never even met and sold some personal items to pay the bills. We drained our savings completely and later sold our home…Without my lawyer, former US Attorney Dennis Vacco, we would be lost.”
This ordeal crippled Caputo’s business. “Several public-affairs clients left me during the investigations and never returned. Many more decided not to hire me. This forced me to close my public relations firm and appears to have cost me about $2.5 million in revenues since 2017.”
All for nothing.
“I was not charged with any crime by the Democrat Russia Coup investigations,” Caputo said. “Outside official proceedings, I was endlessly accused by Democrat officials and their conjugal media of colluding with Russia, but no proof was ever given.”
Nonetheless, this “nothing” hammered Caputo and his loved ones.
“The Democrat Russia Coup investigations destroyed my successful career, destroyed my business, nearly destroyed my family, and was particularly destructive for my daughters,” Caputo stated. “The harassment and violence which the coup plotters intentionally inspired against my family drove my cancer and forced us to leave our hometown and move to a remote location in the Everglades for our safety. We are still there.”
Caputo successfully battled throat and neck cancer, which he believes was exacerbated by Russia Hoax-related anxiety. He still contends with constant, severe tinnitus, a relentless side effect of his chemotherapy.
“The Democrat coup plotters wanted to stack the bodies of Trump loyalists and their families — our children — high enough that nobody ever would challenge them again,” Caputo said. “Thank God for Donald J. Trump. He beat them. He never forgot our family in the battle, and still cares for us, even today.”
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