Right-wing gambling mogul and Rethuglican / Likudnik mega donor Sheldon "Smelly Shelly" Adelson hasn't been shy about donating generously to the Rethuglicans in the past decade or so. While his true passion is preserving Israel's far-right apartheid government, he donated a staggering $123 million to Rethugs and conservative groups in the 2018 election cycle alone. As a small token of his thanks, corrupt sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump even gave Smelly Shelly's wife Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. When Rump moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a controversial move, the Adelsons were seated in the front row of the ceremony.
It comes as no surprise, then, that Adelson is eager to defend the Rump regime and to do what he can to undercut the ongoing investigations of its alleged criminality. To wit, Smelly Shelly is digging into his very deep pockets to support a legal defense fund for Rump-associated miscreants. According to the story, the money will go a front organization ironically called the "Patriot Legal Defense Fund Trust" (Russian patriots?).
In the past, we've covered Adelson's brushes with the law, namely the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign governments. His shady dealings in Macau, where he operates a casino, were exposed in his 2015 trial for graft, which he ultimately settled for millions of dollars. He's the emblem of the corrupt nexus of money and politics, so it follows that he's supporting the poisoned fruits of that tree in their legal fights.
(photo: The Gambling Godfather holding court, but not in it.)
