Trump appointees tried to break the law against putting living man’s face on your money

The seditious conspirators who plotted the overthrow of America’s 2020 election are scheming to break the law again by putting President Donald Trump’s face on a new $250 bill.

And so you shall know them by their vanity. It appears that certain high-placed gentlemen in the current administration have been caught with their hands in the nation’s inkwell, trying to print a brand new $250 bill with a very particular face on it.

That face belongs to the very man who put them there. The Washington Post has the receipts, and the story is a plain-faced, hard-nosed piece of work about how the rules of the republic are for little people.

Let us be clear about what happened.

Starting last year, two political appointees at the Treasury Department—a U.S. Treasurer and his senior adviser—began leaning hard on the folks at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

They wanted prototypes. They wanted mock-ups. And they wanted a $250 note featuring the sitting president’s portrait. This is not speculation. They provided bureau staff with designs last August, complete with the president’s face planted smack in the middle, flanked by his signature and the treasury secretary’s, like a bad wedding cake topper.

Now, a reasonable person might ask: is that legal? It is not.

Federal law, passed way back in 1866 after some mid-level pencil pusher got his own mug on a nickel, says only dead people can appear on U.S. currency. That is the rule.

It has stood for a century and a half. But when has a little thing like a federal statute ever stopped ambition from having its tantrum?

The director of the printing bureau, a 24-year Army veteran named Patricia Solimene, did her job.

She told the political appointees no. She explained the law. She told them a new bill takes six to eight years to develop, not six to eight weeks.

And for her trouble, she was reassigned. Shoved aside. And in her goodbye email, she wrote four words that ought to echo off every marble wall in Washington: “The buck stopped here.”

Yes ma’am, it did. And then they threw the buck out the door.

They replaced her with one of the very men who had been pushing the scheme. That is how this works now. You resist the lie, you get the door. You go along, you get the desk. And what were they pushing?

A British painter—a former DJ and competitive swimmer, because of course he is—says he designed the mock-up after speaking directly with the president.

The president, we are told, gave notes. He wanted the colors of the flag. He wanted a 250th anniversary logo. He wanted, it seems, a monument to himself printed on the one thing every American touches.

Congress has not authorized this.

The $250 denomination is not legal tender. The Secret Service, the Federal Reserve, the entire private-sector infrastructure that keeps your money from being a colorful piece of wallpaper—none of that has been consulted.

That did not stop the appointees from demanding it be done yesterday. One employee called it crazy.

When you hear that a career civil servant used the word “crazy” to describe the behavior of her political masters, you can bet your bottom dollar it was worse than that.

Now, to be fair, the Treasury Department put out a statement saying the treasurer never asked for the bill to be printed before Congress passed a law.

But they also confirmed they are moving “proactively” to produce the note.

Proactively. That is a fine word for doing the thing you are not yet allowed to do, just in case you are allowed to do it later. And in the meantime, they have already started printing $100 bills with the president’s signature. That part is legal. It is also the sort of thing a monarch does, not a president.

A congressman from South Carolina introduced a bill to make this $250 fantasy real. It has not had a hearing. It is sitting in a drawer somewhere, gathering dust. But that has not stopped the political appointees from acting as if it already passed.

When the director stood in their way, she was walked out. The buck stopped with her. So they picked it up and carried it right past the law.

You want the truth of it? Here is the truth.

This is not about commemorating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. It is about commemorating the one man who believes he is the nation.

If you think it is a small thing, a silly vanity project about a bill nobody needs because nobody carries cash anymore, then you have not been paying attention. First they put his signature on your money. Then they put his face on it while he is still breathing. Then they fire the woman who says no.

The people who are supposed to guard the printing press are now running it for the man in the portrait. And the rest of us will be left holding the bag. Or in this case, the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bill that does not exist, cannot be spent, and should never have been printed.