Monday, August 26, 2024

🎶 Who Knows Where The Money Goes, Who Knows....Where...The Money...Go-oes? 🎶

It appears even Trump may not know. I've never really bought the argument that he's a chucklefuck but a secret accounting genius. I think he's just a chucklefuck.
Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump’s campaign spending reports would quickly conclude they’re a governance nightmare. There is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president himself) can’t possibly know how it was spent.

Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020 show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump family members and close associates. This year’s campaign disclosures are shaping up to be the same. Donors big and small give their hard-earned dollars to candidates with the expectation they will be spent on direct efforts to win votes. They deserve better.

As the NYAG established, just because people are willing to be fleeced, doesn't mean they aren't being fleeced.  Trump's whole schtick is fraud.  Is that worse than being a felon?

The prosecutor versus the felon is the kind of glib expression that’s perfect for an election-year bumper sticker. However, the suggestion that a “felon” is inherently and permanently untrustworthy makes for a heaping helping of hypocrisy from a party that has rightly identified overcriminalization, mass incarceration and voter suppression as systemic problems. 

Personally, I think it is.  Although a felony is, traditionally, a crime of moral turpitude.  Which, I suppose, one can rehabilitate from; but first you have to confess your gilt and acknowledge your responsibility.  This Trump has singularly refused to do.  He's also been found liable for fraud, libel, and civil sexual assault.  His New York charity was shut down as a fraud, and he's banned from ever operating another charity in the state of New York.  Is it hypocrisy to mention any of that?

Granted, Trump has not been found guilty of fraud in the way he's raised and spent campaign funds. But do we need civil judgments or criminal convictions to note there is a pattern here?

Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes a PAC that pays Mr. Trump’s legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump’s campaign co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn’t be used to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills seem more hollow.

This election, the Trump campaign and four of its PACs have paid Red Curve Solutions, another private company, at least $18 million. The Campaign Legal Center says Red Curve appears to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills and then gets reimbursed by the PACs. (The law is murky on what types of legal bills can be paid by campaigns, but some are allowed.) The head of Red Curve also serves as the treasurer for the Trump campaign as well as the affiliated PACs.

What percentage of donor contributions go to lawyers defending Mr. Trump? It’s impossible to know. 

Feature, not bug.  Nor accident. 

It seems likely Mr. Trump is keeping close tabs on donations flowing through campaign vehicles controlled by family members and loyalists. But from early March through July of this year, the Biden and now Harris campaign outspent the Trump campaign three to one on advertising. By late May, the Democratic campaign had opened 200 field offices and hired 1,000 staff members in key states. The Trump campaign didn’t open its first office in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania until June. The Biden campaign had 24 there in April.

Biden’s campaign also spent donor cash on legal bills, though apparently in far smaller quantities. It paid over $1 million for attorneys during a special counsel probe of the president’s handling of classified documents, The Associated Press reported in April.

Maybe the Trump campaign is saving up for a post-Labor Day blitz to the finish line. Or perhaps Brad Parscale, whose strategy firm took in $94 million from Trump-affiliated groups in the 2016 campaign, spent every cent of that to re-elect the president. We know he seems to have paid himself handsomely. He bought a $2.4 million Fort Lauderdale waterfront property, a BMW X6, a Range Rover and a Ferrari. When Mr. Trump learned of Mr. Parscale’s high-rolling lifestyle, he reportedly exclaimed, “That’s my money!” according to Michael Bender’s book on the Trump campaign. Concerns about Mr. Parscale reportedly drove Mr. Kushner to ensure A.M.M.C. was fully controlled by the Trump family and trusted lieutenants.

Donors should demand more information about how their money is spent. But that would most likely offend the Trump family and confidants running the campaign. And the whole point of donating to Mr. Trump is to get on his good side.

And — just hypothetically, of course — if Vice President Kamala Harris opens up her lead in the polls and the odds fall that Mr. Trump could win, who would be surprised if the unknown owners of the mystery companies paid themselves more while the campaign spigots are blasting cash and the future uncertain?

Lawyers always get paid first, even in bankruptcy.  There's a reason for that.  A very good reason why Trump is doing few events, and those as cheaply as possible; while he sends Vance to empty parking lots to talk to sunbleached folding chairs.

I guess Trump will win on character:

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)