This Republican Actually Wants To Put Convict Trump’s Face On A $500 Bill

Around the same time that Rep. Eric Swalwell(D-Calif.) waspublicly slamming the Republican Party for its cult-like devotion to former President Donald Trump, one far-right Arizona lawmaker was busy finalizing legislation to honor the MAGA movement’s leader.

Rep. Paul Gosar’s new bill, dubbed the Treasury Reserve Unveiling Memorable Portrait (TRUMP) Act , would require the United States Treasury to print $500 bills with Trump’s face on them. No joke.

Gosar rolled out the bill just days after Trump became the first U.S. president ever convicted of a crime. A New York jury last week found him guilty of 34 felonies in a state-level criminal case that centered on hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016.

Gosar’s bill to celebrate the former president in the form of legal tender would break with decades of tradition — and flout a150-year-old federal law that prohibits living persons being featured on U.S. money.

On its website, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco writes: “To avoid the appearance of a monarchy, it was long-standing tradition to only feature portraits of deceased individuals on currency and coin. That tradition became law with an 1866 Act of Congress.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explained the 1866 law this way : “Our Founding Fathers believed it was unpatriotic for living people’s likenesses to be placed on money in circulation.” The publication noted that President George Washington declined having his portrait on the silver dollar while he was alive, although he is now featured on both the $1 bill and the quarter.

The 1866 law has been ignored at times in the past, most notably when then-President Calvin Coolidge appeared on a commemorative half dollar minted for the 150th