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Post by the Scribe on Jan 17, 2022 1:29:01 GMT
Trump is clearly the most corrupt president in American history.No, Donald Trump Isn't Self-Funding His Campaign
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-self-fund_n_57fd4556e4b00c1fb2b023e0
His campaign is mostly fueled by donors not named Donald Trump.
By Paul Blumenthal
10/11/2016 05:11pm EDT
Donald Trump continued to claim that he is self-funding his campaign at the second presidential debate.SAUL LOEB VIA GETTY IMAGES
WASHINGTON ― Throughout his presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump has promised that he is beholden to no one but himself. He likes to point to his self-financing of his campaign as evidence of this.
www.huffpost.com/topic/donald-trump
In the second presidential debate Sunday and at a rally Monday, Trump continued to claim that he is self-financing his campaign, unlike Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
www.huffpost.com/topic/hillary-clinton
“I will have in my race more than $100 million put in of my money, meaning I’m not taking all of this big money from all of these different corporations like she’s doing,” Trump said at the debate. “What I ask is this. I’m putting in more, by the time it’s finished, I’ll have more than $100 million invested. Pretty much self-funding. We’re raising money for the Republican Party and we’re doing tremendously on the small donations — $61 average or so.”
The problem with Trump’s statement is that his self-financing stopped being a major part of his finances after he racked up enough primary and caucus wins to guarantee the Republican Party nomination. From June through August, Trump contributed just $6.1 million to his campaign. The rest came from donors not named Donald Trump.
Overall, Trump’s official campaign has reported $83.1 million in receipts from June to August ― the latter month being the most recently disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. His own contributions account for just 7 percent of the total.
Trump did largely self-finance his primary campaign through large loans that were later converted to contributions. He gave a total of $47.9 million from his June 2015 presidential announcement through the end of May 2016. Those contributions significantly scaled back after he secured the party’s nomination.
The largest source of Trump funds is small donors giving under $200. In total, these small donors have given $45.2 million when including all contributions under $200 listed as transfers from the joint fundraising committees linking his campaign to the Republican National Committee. That’s more than 50 percent of all contributions to Trump’s campaign.
Donors giving more than $200 gave $31.8 million in the summer months. Of that amount, $10.4 million came from donors giving $2,700 or more. (Donors are limited to giving $2,700 for each a primary and general election, making the official limit one could give prior to the Republican National Convention $5,400.)
Trump’s share of fundraising coming from small donors is no doubt the highest percentage for a general election presidential candidate. His problem, however, is that it is difficult to compare his fundraising to past candidates in the modern era because he has raised so little money.
The Clinton campaign ― just the official Hillary for America account ― had received $377 million from donors through August. In just the same summer months when Trump started fundraising, the Clinton campaign raised $145 million from donors. When including transfers from her joint fundraising committees, Clinton even raised more from small donors than Trump, with $54.3 million coming from donors giving under $200.
As for Trump’s claim that he will end up donating $100 million to his own campaign, he would need to either have already contributed or plan to contribute another $50 million from September through Nov. 8.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-violence_n_56e1f16fe4b0b25c91815913
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326
www.huffpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_n_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83
www.huffpost.com/entry/18-real-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women_n_55d356a8e4b07addcb442023
www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 17, 2022 1:35:14 GMT
Trump tells donors to give money to him, not Republicans ‘in name only’
www.cnbc.com/2021/03/09/trump-tells-donors-to-give-him-money-not-republicans-in-name-only.html
PUBLISHED TUE, MAR 9 20214:07 PM ESTUPDATED TUE, MAR 9 20218:41 PM EST
Kevin Breuninger
@kevinwilliamb
KEY POINTS
Former President Donald Trump is competing with the Republican Party’s fundraising operation and lashing out at its members.
“No more money for RINOs,” Trump said in a fundraising email that instructed supporters to instead send money to his own political action committee.
Trump has also demanded that the Republican National Committee stop using his name and image in its fundraising messages.
Former President Donald Trump is competing with the GOP’s fundraising operation and lashing out at its members, further complicating his status as a Republican Party leader.
“No more money for RINOs,” Trump said in a fundraising email Monday night, referring to “Republicans in name only,” a term used to bash moderate GOP politicians accused of governing like Democrats.
Trump, without specifying his targets by name, asserted that they “do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base — they will never lead us to Greatness.”
In an apparent attempt to elaborate, Trump issued a follow-up statement Tuesday afternoon, saying, “I fully support the Republican Party and important GOP Committees, but I do not support RINOs and fools.”
Trump added that “it is not their right to use my likeness or image to raise funds” — a reference to his growing feud with the Republican Party over its use of his name and likeness in its fundraising efforts.
Both statements were sent by Trump’s political action committee, Save America, and both statements urged his supporters to donate to that PAC. “So much money is being raised and completely wasted by people that do not have the GOP’s best interests in mind,” Trump’s latest statement claimed.
Those requests echoed Trump’s recent speech in Orlando — his first post-presidency public remarks — where he told a crowd of supporters that his own PAC was the only way to “elect ‘America First’ Republican conservatives.”
www.cnbc.com/2021/02/28/trump-to-slam-biden-attack-republican-critics-in-first-post-white-house-speech.html
WATCH NOW
VIDEO05:07
Republicans unite around Trump at CPAC
Redirecting the flow of Republican money into his own war chest, if successful, could help Trump tighten his grip on the party as he aims to undermine his perceived enemies within it. But experts say promoting his own PAC could also carry other perks for Trump.
PACs such as Save America can raise donations for political expenditures such as supporting candidates, and Trump could use his to lay the groundwork for a presidential campaign in 2024. But they “also can be used for just about anything else,” said Brendan Fischer, Federal Reform Program director at the Campaign Legal Center.
“Given the amount of money raised, it’s entirely possible Trump could use Save America both to maintain control and influence over the Republican Party and also to benefit himself and his family members personally,” Fischer told CNBC in an interview.
The Associated Press reported earlier in March that Save America has more than $80 million cash on hand.
apnews.com/article/trump-direct-fundraising-republicans-fundraising-e9143dc690d8d6b5c98aeccb33f0e425
Trump, who never formally conceded defeat to President Joe Biden, has hardly stepped back from politics since his one term in office expired Jan. 20. Now ensconced at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump has presented himself as the de facto leader and future of his party while regularly attacking prominent Republicans who are still in office.
Even as Trump teases a possible 2024 presidential run on the Republican ticket, he is demanding that the Republican National Committee stop using his name and image in its fundraising messages.
Trump’s lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters Friday to the RNC, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senate Committee, NBC News reported.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-sent-cease-desist-letters-gop-campaign-committees-n1259824
On Monday, RNC chief counsel J. Justin Riemer rebuffed that demand, telling Save America’s lawyer Alex Cannon that Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel had hashed out the dispute.
“We understand that President Trump reaffirmed to [McDaniel] over the weekend that he approves of the RNC’s current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for our upcoming donor retreat event at Palm Beach at which we look forward to him participating,” Riemer wrote in a letter to Cannon.
That letter, shared with CNBC by the RNC, noted that the committee “has not sent any fundraising requests in President Trump’s name or used his image since before he left office, nor would it to do without his prior approval.”
Riemer added: “The RNC, of course, has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech, and it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals.”
Trump’s Monday night email, decrying “RINOs” and urging donations to the Save America PAC, appeared to contradict Riemer’s claim that Trump and McDaniel had reached an agreement on the issue.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the back-and-forth with the RNC. A contact for the Save America PAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Republicans lost the White House and the Senate majority in the wake of Trump’s presidency. But the Republican Party and many of its leaders have kept closely allied with Trump, whose popularity endures among huge chunks of the GOP electorate.
Some Republicans have openly condemned Trump for his conduct before and after the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in five deaths and forced a joint session of Congress into hiding. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House, in late February said, “I don’t believe that [Trump] should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.”
But more Republicans have avoided criticizing Trump even after the invasion, which appeared to have little impact on the former president’s overall approval among his base. Others who had initially distanced themselves from Trump after the deadly riot, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, later reaffirmed their support for him.
www.cnbc.com/2021/01/17/trump-retains-support-from-republicans-after-capitol-attack-nbc-poll.html
www.wric.com/news/politics/its-over-trump-ally-lindsey-graham-tells-senate-biden-is-the-legitimate-president/
www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/kevin-mccarthy-capitol-riots-trump-responsibility.html
Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had excoriated Trump for peddling false election-theft conspiracies, said more recently he would “absolutely” support Trump if he became the GOP nominee in 2024.
www.cnbc.com/2021/02/13/mcconnell-votes-for-acquittal-but-says-no-question-trump-responsible-for-riot.html
www.axios.com/mcconnell-trump-2024-republican-nominee-32ed25ef-33fd-4c9b-ae43-3507d16ab82b.html
Meanwhile, numerous other Republicans rumored to have presidential ambitions appear to be taking steps toward launching their own campaigns, while taking care not to cross Trump.
Next month, for instance, former Vice President Mike Pence will reportedly travel to South Carolina, a crucial state on the presidential primary map, to deliver his first public speech since leaving office.
nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/pence-to-give-speech-in-sc-his-1st-since-leaving-office-03-08-2021
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 17, 2022 1:38:28 GMT
ELECTION 2020|Feb 5, 2021,11:01am EST|1,001,139 views
Trump Shifted Campaign-Donor Money Into His Private Business After Losing The Election
www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2021/02/05/trump-shifted-campaign-donor-money-into-his-private-business-after-losing-the-election/?sh=29fcf95f4418
Dan Alexander Forbes Staff
Billionaires
Senior editor at Forbes, covering Donald Trump's business.
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, which never received a cent from the former president, moved an estimated $2.8 million of donor money into the Trump Organization—including at least $81,000 since Trump lost the election.
In addition, one of the campaign’s joint-fundraising committees, which collects money in partnership with the Republican Party, shifted about $4.3 million of donor money into Trump’s business from January 20, 2017, to December 31, 2020—at least $331,000 of which came after the election.
The money covered the cost of rent, airfare, lodging and other expenses. All the payments are laid out in filings the campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission. Representatives for the Trump Organization, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Two days after the election, on November 5, the joint-fundraising committee paid $11,000 to Trump’s hotel empire. A week later—after the Associated Press, Fox News and other major media outlets had already called the race for Joe Biden—the same committee put another $294,000 into Trump’s hotel business to rent space, order catering and pay for lodging. The campaign pitched in additional change—$110 that had been earmarked for recount efforts on November 16, another $220 the following day and $189 more the day after that.
On November 19, the campaign paid $31,000 for air travel to a company named DT Endeavor LLC. Five days later, the joint-fundraising committee paid the same entity $39,000. Forbes did not include those payments in its overall total of money moving into Trump’s empire, since it’s not 100% clear that the former president owns DT Endeavor LLC. There are strong indications that he does, though. The federal filings list the address for the DT Endeavor LLC as Trump Tower in one spot and Mar-a-Lago in another. Trump also owns an aviation company with an almost identical name, DT Endeavor I LLC.
Whether or not Trump owns DT Endeavor LLC, he certainly controls several other companies collecting money from the campaign. On November 20, one of Trump’s joint-fundraising committees paid $20,000 to his hotel outfit.
Less than a week after that, the campaign paid $3,000 in rent to Trump Restaurants LLC, which the former president owns outright. That company appears to be connected to a souvenir stand in the basement of Trump Tower.
On December 1, nearly a month after the election, the campaign handed over $38,000 in rent to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, the company through which Trump owns his stake in the famous Fifth Avenue tower. Fifteen days later, the campaign sent another $3,000 to Trump Restaurants LLC and added $38,000 more for Trump Tower Commercial LLC. In all, the postelection payments from the campaign and its joint-fundraising committee add up to $413,000—or $484,000, if you include the money that flowed into DT Endeavor LLC, according to a review of the filings.
That’s not a life-changing amount of money for Trump, who is worth an estimated $2.5 billion. But it would be for most people, including many of the donors who chipped in to support Trump’s campaign.
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 17, 2022 1:42:53 GMT
DONALD TRUMP REPORTEDLY USED CAMPAIGN DONATIONS TO PAY HIMSELF $8.2 MILLION
www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/donald-trump-campaign-donations-report
A new report reveals that the self-proclaimed “King of Debt” has been drawing from his campaign funds to pay his businesses.
BY TINA NGUYEN
SEPTEMBER 22, 2016
As befitting a man who laughs in the face of impropriety, Donald Trump does not particularly care about the optics of using his campaign to boost his own businesses. In 2000, he told an interviewer that he “could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it,” a prediction he would fulfill 15 years later as he promoted, at various times, steaks, bottled water, golf courses, and, famously, in a media bait-and-switch, his new hotel in Washington, D.C. (Those rumors that his presidential run was a promotional stunt for the D.C. hotel came full circle that day.) But there’s boosting one’s businesses through free publicity (and Trump has reportedly received more than $3 billion in free media since he launched his campaign), and then there’s the results of a new Politico report, which found that Trump has used his campaign’s money to pay his own businesses $8.2 million.
fortune.com/2000/04/03/what-does-donald-trump-really-want/
www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-has-gotten-nearly-3-billion-in-free-advertising-2016-05-06
According to the report, the money has gone toward paying his office’s rent in his own building ($1.3 million), paying for food and facilities at his own properties ($544,000), and even his own corporate staffers ($333,000) who perform campaign-related functions, such as his personal head of security. According to Politico, F.E.C. filings also revealed a $1,300 expense for his bottled-water company, Trump Ice; $432,000 for catering, facilities, and putting up the campaign at his resort Mar-a-Lago; and $6 million for the use of Trump’s plane, the largest expense in their filings.
www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-business-campaign-trail-228500
Though it’s unclear exactly how Trump is getting away with this, given that he refuses to release his tax returns, this practice might well be legal, depending on how Trump’s businesses are structured. G.O.P. election lawyer Jason Torchinsky told Politico that prior to this political Gilded Age, wealthy candidates would refrain from tapping their own resources, either because their companies were publicly held or owned by multiple people, or they didn’t want to give off the sense that they were profiteering from the campaign.
When it comes to keeping up appearances, Trump is a man who openly bragged at a rally that, “There’s nothing like doing things with other people's money,” a practice that he abbreviated, happily, as “O.P.M.” While the practice may be legal, the timing of this report could not be worse for Trump, who recently faced allegations that he used funds from his charity, the Trump Foundation, to pay legal fees for his for-profit businesses, showing that at the very least, he purportedly has a repeated inclination for using other people’s money for his own purposes. In a related note, the U.S. federal government generates $3.8 trillion a year in tax revenue.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/20/trump-brags-about-using-other-peoples-money/
www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/donald-trump-foundation-lawsuits
www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/revenues/
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 17, 2022 1:54:45 GMT
Trump raised $200m from false election claims. What happens to the money now?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/19/trump-raised-200m-from-false-election-claims-what-happens-to-the-money-now
The president could use the funds to ensure he and his allies remain a powerful force in US politics
Much of the money Trump has raised has gone to a political action committee called Save America. Photograph: Cheriss May/Reuters
Chris McGreal
Sat 19 Dec 2020 04.00 EST
The battle is lost. The supreme court and electoral college have spoken. Even the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, so adept at remaking the rules for political advantage, has acknowledged that Donald Trump will not be the next president.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump
But the money flowing into Trump’s political coffers suggests that defeat will not drive the soon-to-be-former president into the political shadows.
Trump has been on a fundraising drive since the election, rapidly bringing in an astonishing $200m or more on the back of his false claims that the vote was rigged.
His campaign bombarded supporters with emails and text messages – as many as 30 a day – pleading for donations to a fighting fund to challenge the result. But with the election settled, that is not where the money is going.
Trump is spending the last days of his presidency on a literal killing spree
Austin Sarat
Read more
Most of the cash is directed to Save America, an organisation formed as a leadership political action committee (Pac) shortly after the election. Leadership Pacs were designed to allow individuals to raise money in support of a favoured candidate and Trump cannot legally use the proceeds to directly fund a run for office himself, such as another bid for the presidency in four years.
But Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance specialist at the Campaign Legal Center, said Trump’s fundraising was unprecedented and evidence of undimmed political ambition.
“I can think of no other president who has set up a leadership PAC immediately after losing an election and begun fundraising for it furiously. This is entirely, entirely unique,” he said.
“I think it’s basically going to be the vehicle for Trump’s post-White House political operation.”
Trump raised the money in a blitz of appeals for donations to what was billed as an “official election defense fund” without clear mention of Save America. An aggressive sales pitch was built around the president’s false claims that the election was rigged – even as one legal challenge after another was struck down.
“We need YOUR HELP to DEFEND the integrity of our Election,” said one email.
Another email carried the subject line: “The Recount Results were BOGUS.”
The money flooded in but most of it will go nowhere near fighting the outcome of an election that is already settled. Some was used to pay off Trump’s campaign debt, and 25 cents in every dollar goes directly to the Republican party. The remainder is paid to Save America.
“We’d expect that there’s well over $100m in the leadership Pac account by this point,” said Fischer. “That is exceptional. That is a lot of money, far more than any other leadership Pac that I can think of has raised.”
Fischer said that is an indication that Trump is not planning to quietly retreat from the political stage to write his memoirs.
“The creation of his leadership Pac is certainly an indication that Trump plans to remain very active in politics, and is aiming to remain a major political player,” he said.
“Because leadership Pacs are loosely regulated, he could use the funds not only to keep his campaign staff on the payroll, but also to potentially benefit financially. He could use the leadership Pac to pay himself a salary, to pay family members a salary. There’s a lot of things you can do with this.”
Jennifer Victor, associate professor of political science at George Mason University, said the smart move would be for Trump to use the money to fund the election of political loyalists to keep Trumpism alive.
Mar-A-Lago<br>FILE- This Monday, Nov. 21, 2016 file photo, shows the Mar-a-Lago resort owned by President-elect Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Fla. Three teenagers are facing felony charges after police said Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020, they jumped a wall at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club while fleeing officers. Police say the three were carrying a semi-automatic gun in a backpack, but likely didn’t know the wall belonged to Mar-a-Lago. Neither the president nor a family member was at the club, which is closed for the summer. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
Mar-a-Lago neighbors say Trump can’t live there after White House
“Is he savvy enough as a political operator to use that money to essentially build a broad coalition in which he is the center and the doler-out of the money that could strengthen his political position? It’s hard to say because his political movement so far has been so centered around himself,” she said.
“He would have to have an interest in building the Republican party around Trumpism, which has kind of been happening quite naturally over the last number of years. But to make that a permanent feature of the Republican party he would have to then use the political capital that has built around his name for the benefit of party, which means giving it to other candidates.”
Victor said that created a headache for the Republican party leadership if it hoped to move beyond Trump.
“He will be not just a past president and candidate, but a candidate who won the second-highest vote total of any American candidate ever, second only to Joe Biden. So he has this enormous base of followers. At the same time, he’s always defied the democratic norms and the norms of the Republican party,” she said.
Then there is Trump’s stated desire to run for president again in four years.
“Save America cannot be used to support Trump’s campaign, but there are a number of ways that it could be used to lay the groundwork for a run for office in 2024,” said Fischer.
“Probably where it’s going to be more useful is to finance Trump’s campaigning in support of another candidate. It can potentially pay for rallies in support of another candidate. It can be used to pay for ads that are run ostensibly independently of the candidate that he’s supporting.”
That could include funding a run for office by one of his own children. Speculation is already swirling around the possibility of Ivanka Trump running for the US Senate in Florida.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/13/ivanka-trump-speculation-potential-run-us-senate-florida
All of which maintains president’s political profile and influence in the Republican party, particularly as he has proved adept at turning other people’s campaign events into de facto Trump rallies.
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What Trump cannot use the donations for is to resolve the legal and financial problems he faces when he leaves the White House which may stand in the way of future political ambitions.
Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, is leading a criminal investigation into Trump’s business dealings. New York’s state attorney general, Letitia James, is heading a civil probe after the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress Trump inflated the value of his assets to secure bank loans and then reduced them to cut tax.
The investigations recently expanded to examine consulting fees that may have gone to the president’s daughter Ivanka . She responded to news of the inquiry by calling it politically motivated harassment.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/20/ivanka-trump-new-york-fraud-inquiries-donald-trump-organization
Trump loses his protection from criminal prosecution when he leaves office. While he claims to have the power to pardon himself before he departs the White House, any such move would only apply to federal crimes, not charges brought by New York or any other state.
The president is also facing huge debt repayments. Trump has personally guaranteed about $420m in debt owed by his businesses which has to be repaid in the coming years, according to the New York Times.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
The bulk of those debts are with Deutsche Bank. Last month Reuters reported that the bank was trying to sever ties with the president.
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-deutsche-bank-exclusive-idUSKBN27J0G0
The Trump Organization, the president’s umbrella group that is currently overseen by his two sons, owes about $340m to Deutsche Bank. The loans, which are against Trump properties, start coming due in two years.
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