Madoff, Weinstein & Trump

Christine Merser, April 22, 2025

Here’s the thing about the old boys’ network: it doesn’t die when you take down the guy at the top.

It’s never just the one man. It’s the whole damn system standing behind him, smoothing things over, making sure nobody looks too closely, making sure the money keeps flowing. And the system is made up of individual men, whose drive is power and wealth.

We like to tell ourselves that when the head of the snake gets cut off, the danger’s over. Problem solved. Move on.

But anyone who’s ever seen a real snake knows better — even after you cut off the head, the body keeps moving. Sometimes it even strikes. The nerves keep firing, even after death.

That’s exactly how it’s worked with Bernie Madoff and Harvey Weinstein. And if we don’t wake up fast, it’s exactly how it’s going to work with Donald Trump too.

When Bernie Madoff finally went down, they hauled him out in handcuffs, and everybody clapped like the story was over. One evil man, one historic crime, one good ending. Only it wasn’t.

JPMorgan Chase, the very bank that saw all the red flags, keeps banking crooks today, just like they banked Madoff. Sure, they were given a fine, a few million, which is pennies. Pennies, I tell you. Madoff’s feeder funds shoveled other people’s life savings into scams and took their fees. His staff, the ones who looked the other way, walked free. Even the firm that was tasked with restitution was paid — wait for it — more than $1 billion dollars.

The financial world had a little public shame parade, the SEC was filled with sadness and sorries, but nobody powerful paid for it. No real reforms. No real penalties. The machine just found a new way to print money.

Same thing with Harvey Weinstein. They made a show of dragging him into court in handcuffs. And don’t get me wrong, he deserved every second of it. But what about the ones who helped him?

The lawyers who broker hush money deals? Still practicing. His team around him? Moved on to obscurity.

David Boies, a respected lawyer who once earned a reputation for taking on Microsoft, hired private spies to track and intimidate Weinstein’s accusers. He didn’t get shunned. He’s still out there, still collecting big clients, still sitting at the top of the legal pyramid like nothing ever happened.

The movie executives and the tabloids that protected Weinstein? Still cashing checks.

We can’t fix what happened with Madoff or Weinstein. That damage is done.

How is it that we do that? One fall guy, and hundreds go without any fear of accountability? And, in the end, no one in future crimes like Trump, Weinstein, and Madoff has one bit of concern that it will affect them. Why would they?

But Trump is different. We are early enough to change the old boy network pattern that has yet to be broken. Now. Today. Tomorrow.

The network around him is still alive, still feeding him, still getting rich off him, and breaking the laws while doing it, not concerned that they will be held accountable for their action during it. No one from his first term was held accountable. Not really. Ok, the Pillow Man was, more on him later.

Remember the Pillow Man? That despicable man who once swaggered across stages, promising the moon and declaring he had the answers? He stood yesterday, alone in front of a judge. No bravado. No booming voice. No entourage. Just a man who cried in open court and admitted he has zero dollars to his name. He is, in some ways, our gold standard — a living, breathing cautionary tale about what happens when the money runs out and the lies catch up. He needs to be our goal.

What if we had sued him while he was doing it? Back when it would have made a difference, not years later when no one’s even covering it.

If we don’t start taking them apart now, while he’s still standing, they’re going to rebuild the second he falls. Same as they always have.

Let’s start from the premise that Trump isn’t going to make it through this. I know, I hear you, but start from that foundation. The cases are real. The evidence is overwhelming.

If we leave his enablers standing unchallenged as all this unfolds, if we wait for it all to fall apart naturally, we’re just setting up the next Trump to come riding in on the same broken system. Team Trump is creating chaos, every day a new shiny object for us to focus on and changing it the next day so the prior day’s crisis is lost in the chaos.

Trump isn’t surviving on fumes. He’s surviving because there’s a whole damn army of people still standing behind him, people making money off him, people protecting him, people betting that if he gets back into power, they’ll get paid even bigger.

If we don’t start ripping that network apart personally and professionally, we’re going to watch this nightmare drag on a lot longer than it should.

It’s not enough to send letters. It’s not enough to post angry tweets. If we want to actually change anything, we have to start going after “them” personally, just like they’re going after us right now.

Take Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He’s out there today lying about autism, lying about vaccines, dragging families into conspiracy theories that wreck lives. Changing things so people will die.

He’s slandering families, building a campaign off the backs of parents who are already fighting every day for their children’s futures.

Enough.

Parents of autistic children, real parents, not organizations with slogans, need to start suing Robert Kennedy personally for defamation. Autism organizations need to do the same. Become the ACLU of autism and spend money and time pushing a personal attack on Robert Kennedy.

Take off the gloves and smell the takedown. If that is your battle, stick with it. Ignore the shiny objects today. Spend your time and treasure on just that batter. Be in that flank.

Sue him for every lie.

Sue him for every speech, every podcast, every book where he twists science into personal attacks against innocent kids.

Make him show up in court and explain himself — not to a podcast host, but to a judge. Many times. From many different sources.

Make him spend half his campaign fund defending himself from the truth.

And it’s not just Kennedy.

It’s everyone still standing around Trump, feeding him, shielding him, helping him create chaos and his personal power and wealth.

Organizations and individuals need to file SEC complaints against the people on the Hill who made millions when Trump backed off last week from the tariffs. SEC complaints against Apple, who got an exemption from tariffs by — wait for it — campaign contributions and even sponsoring the egg hunt at the White House on Easter. I know. I know. But don’t tweet about it. Buy a share of Apple stock and sue the bastards. Collectively.

I wrote about finding the flank in the many wars and skirmishes this administration has created. Find your battle. Find your flank. Stick with it. Do not spread yourself thin.

We need to create chaos and personal accountability and stress for these humans.

Here’s one that’s out of the box.

In front of his children at the White House, Pete Hegseth was ranting at the press, very angrily, while his children stood behind him looking frightened. If 1,000 people call child services and lodge a request for a house visit out of concern for these small, sad children? Works for me.

These men are not standing with Trump because they believe in him. They’re standing there because they are profiting from it, today.

Every time one of these politicians raises money off Trump’s lies, there should be ethics complaints filed against them.

Every time a member of Congress uses their power to try to interfere with a criminal trial, like demanding sham hearings on “weaponization” or threatening prosecutors, there should be formal legal action filed.

And let’s start asking our senators at Town Halls and other outings why they are not doing it. Every day. Every week.

Create chaos.

Find your battle. Stick with it. Ignore the diversionary explosions.

Because here’s the hard truth. If the people standing around Trump have to start hiring their own criminal lawyers, paying their own legal bills, getting dropped by their corporate donors — if we make it more painful to stand with him than to walk away, Trump collapses faster.

Way faster.

He’s only standing because they are still standing.

Start making it cost the people holding him up.

I can’t wait to see Donald Trump standing alone in a courtroom, broke, betrayed, abandoned by the people who once lined up to kiss his ring.

Trust me, I can’t wait.

But that doesn’t happen by magic.

It happens because we change the way we fight.

We cut off his supply of enablers.