The Bait and Switch

The NDAA, or National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021. According to Monica Montgomery of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, the NDAA authorizes appropriations and establishes policy for the Department of Defense (DOD), nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy (DOE), defense intelligence programs, and other defense activities of the federal government (e.g., military construction projects, homeland security programs). On December 11, the US Senate passed the NDAA - National Defense Authorization Act - by a veto-proof margin of 84-13, after the US House of Representatives passed the bill earlier in the week by a vote of 335-78. 

On December 23, before leaving Washington for his Mar-a-Lago retreat in south Florida, President Trump vetoed the bill. In his veto message to Congress, the President cited three specific reasons for not signing the bill into law:

• The bill did not address Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which President Trump calls a threat to national security by allowing foreign actors to disseminate disinformation online, especially using social media platforms.
• The bill orders the Department of Defense to rename a number of military installations named after men who served in the Confederate army, including Fort Bragg, Fort Lee, and Fort Hood.
• The bill places limits on the amount of money designated for military construction that could be diverted to other purposes during an emergency.

On December 28, the House voted to override the veto by the vote of 322-87, with a handful of Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, abandoning their previous support of the bill in order to support President Trump. The override vote in the Senate is expected on December 29.

While the President may have genuine concerns over these three cited reasons, they don't seem to justify, individually or taken together, vetoing the bill, especially given the overwhelming bipartisan support for the bill in the Congress. So what's really the President's beef?

Tucked into the NDAA is something called the Corporate Transparency Act. This section (in legislative language called a Title) would require certain business entities, such as LLCs, limited partnerships, and other such organizations to report the names of certain beneficiaries (owners of 25% or more, controlling/managing partners, etc.) to an obscure Federal agency called the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network within the Treasury Department. FinCEN tracks financial transactions in order to trace potential money laundering, and LLCs and other similar business entities are the frequent laundromats for such illegal activity. 

The Trump organization is really not a single company, but dozens upon dozens of LLCs and other such companies, layered one over the other. Michael Cohen's payout of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels was from an LLC set up specifically for that purpose. So the threat of a Federal law enforcement agency being able to unravel who controls the LLCs is a very real and present danger to Trump and his family.

LBJ once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Trump (as others before him) is using the shiny objects of white grievance (confederate sympathy and the border wall) as the pickpocket's diversions.

https://armscontrolcenter.org/the-ndaa-process-explained/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/presidential-veto-message-house-representatives-h-r-6395/

https://www.fincen.gov/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/nyregion/stormy-daniels-trump-payment.html

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/