All corrections
Substack June 25, 2026 at 03:22 AM

www.derekthompson.org/p/can-america-escape-the-cycle-of-vicemaxxing

4 corrections found

1
Claim
Two weeks later, Trump pardoned the businessman Trevor Milton, who had been convicted of securities and wire fraud, several months after the Miltons donated millions of dollars to his campaign.
Correction

This timeline is wrong. Trevor Milton was pardoned in March 2025, while Changpeng Zhao was pardoned in October 2025, so Milton was pardoned months earlier—not two weeks later.

Full reasoning

The chronology in this passage is inverted.

  • The Justice Department’s clemency ledger shows Trevor Milton received a pardon on March 27, 2025.
  • TechCrunch reported that Changpeng Zhao was pardoned on October 23, 2025.

That means Milton was pardoned roughly seven months before Zhao, not “two weeks later.”

So even if the broader argument is about corruption, this specific sequencing is factually incorrect.

2 sources
2
Claim
whose conviction of money laundering included one of the largest corporate penalties in history.
Correction

This misstates Zhao’s case. Zhao pleaded guilty to a Bank Secrecy Act offense involving Binance’s anti-money-laundering controls; the multibillion-dollar penalty was imposed on Binance, not as part of Zhao’s personal conviction.

Full reasoning

This sentence conflates Changpeng Zhao’s personal conviction with Binance’s corporate penalty.

According to the Justice Department’s case page:

  • Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by causing Binance to fail to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program.
  • Separately, Binance pleaded guilty to multiple offenses and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties.
  • DOJ described that resolution as the department’s largest corporate guilty plea involving a CEO plea.

So the article is incorrect to say that Zhao’s own conviction was “of money laundering” and that it included one of the largest corporate penalties in history. The huge penalty belonged to Binance’s corporate settlement, not Zhao’s personal conviction.

1 source
3
Claim
with no record in law enforcement.
Correction

This is incorrect. Kash Patel had substantial law-and-justice experience before becoming FBI director, including work as a public defender and as a DOJ counterterrorism prosecutor.

Full reasoning

The phrase “with no record in law enforcement” is contradicted by Patel’s documented career history.

Official and institutional biographies describe Patel as having:

  • served for almost a decade as a public defender,
  • then joined the Department of Justice as a counterterrorism prosecutor,
  • and later held senior national-security posts.

A DOJ prosecutor is plainly part of the federal law-enforcement system, so saying Patel had “no record in law enforcement” is inaccurate.

2 sources
4
Claim
soon after his wife attended a $1 million fundraising dinner for the president.
Correction

This gets the family member wrong. Reports say the $1 million dinner attendee was Paul Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago—not his wife.

Full reasoning

Multiple reports about Walczak’s pardon say the person who attended the $1 million Mar-a-Lago fundraiser was his mother, Elizabeth Fago, not his wife.

The Independent’s write-up of the New York Times reporting says Walczak’s clemency application emphasized the political activity of his mother, and that Fago was invited to the $1 million-per-person dinner at Mar-a-Lago shortly before the pardon. The Justice Department’s clemency ledger separately confirms that Walczak himself received a pardon on April 23, 2025.

So the article misidentifies the donor relative: it was Walczak’s mother, not his wife.

2 sources
Model: OPENAI_GPT_5 Prompt: v1.16.0