On Sunday, Hustler Magazine’s controversial, outspoken publisher Larry Flynt is running a full-page ad in the Washington Post offering $10 million to anyone who can provide information leading to the impeachment and removal from office of President Donald Trump.
This is not Flynt’s first cash offer for information about a politician but it is his largest, and his first attempt to take down a sitting president.
The story of the coming advertisement was first reported by Fox Business News.
EXCLSV Now on @FoxBusiness @imlarryflynt of Hustler Mag will offer $10m to anyone w/info that leads to impeachment of @realDonaldTrump .
the controversial story next only on @ClamanCountdown— Liz Claman (@LizClaman) October 13, 2017
In the first paragraph of the ad, Flynt explains why he is making his offer.
“The attempt to impeach Donald Trump will strike many as a sour-grapes plot by Democrats to overturn a legitimate election,” reads the ad.
“But there is a strong case to be made that this last election was illegitimate in many ways – and after nine tumultuous months in office, Trump has proven he’s dangerously unfit to exercise the extreme power accrued by our new “unitary executive.”
The ad goes on to claim that Trump was only elected because of unprecedented voter suppression efforts by Republicans, and the most “extreme gerrymandering in modern history.”
Flynt also provides a laundry list of reasons Trump should be removed from office. They include inciting racial violence with his dog whistles to the KKK, Nazis, and others; conflicts of interest with his global business empire; gross nepotism; sabotaging the Paris Accords to battle the climate crisis; and that he might trigger a nuclear war.
Flynt said he understood how difficult and upsetting the process of impeachment might be for many Americans, but he said he sees no alternative.
“Impeachment would be a messy contentious affair,” the ad states, “but the alternative – three more years of destabilizing dysfunction – is worse.”
In past years, Flynt has made other high profile offers for information starting with $1 million for information on the real assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
In the 1990s when President Bill Clinton was facing impeachment, Flynt offered $1 million for evidence of sex scandals involving leading Republican or conservative politicians.
In 2012, he offered $1 million for Mitt Romney’s tax returns before the Republican presidential nominee made them public.
In October 2016, Flynt offered $1 million for recordings or videos of Trump breaking the law or acting in a sexually demeaning manner.
Flynt, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since he was shot in an assassination attempt in 1978, started out as a strip club owner before going into porn publishing, which made him extremely rich and controversial.
He has fought numerous battles over his First Amendment rights to write and publish sexy and controversial material, some of which was dramatized in the excellent 1996 movie The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
Flynt’s offer, like most of his earlier efforts, may not bring results, but they add another loud voice to those who are deeply unhappy with how Trump has acted as president.
