Trump's PAC Fundraising and Spending Questioned

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

8-2-2021

'A serious risk of prosecution':
Trump's PAC fundraising and spending questioned
by legal experts.

According to a report from the Guardian, financial information released by political action committees (PACs) linked to Donald Trump are being scrutinized by critics and legal experts alike who see evidence that the former president may be engaged in fraud as he amasses millions of dollars.

As the Guardian's Peter Stone writes, Trump has
"has built an arsenal of political committees and nonprofit groups, staffed with dozens of ex-administration officials and loyalists"
who are now using his election loss to rake in millions for the purported reason of contesting his loss in the courts, yet there are few dollars being spent on lawyers and a lot of questions about what the money is being used for.

Focusing on Trump's "Save America" PAC, the report states, it "had raised a whopping $31.5m by year's end, but Save America spent nothing on legal expenses in this same period, according to public records.
Run by Trump's 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Save America only spent $340,000
on fundraising expenses last year."

Additionally, Trump is now touting a lawsuit and asking for donations to finance it --
against Facebook, Google and Twitter which experts claim looks like another fundraising "ploy" which is leading to even more questions.

According to Paul S. Ryan, vice-president of policy and litigation with Common Cause,
"Donald Trump is a one-man scam Pac.
Bait-and-switch is among his favorite fundraising tactics. This time he's got the unlimited dark money group America First Policy Institute in on the racket."

Adav Noti, a former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, concurred, explaining, "The president deceived his donors.

He asked them to give money so he could contest the election results, but then he spent their contributions to pay off unrelated debts,"
before adding, "That's dangerously close to fraud.

If a regular charity – or an individual who didn't happen to be president of the United States – had raised tens of millions of dollars through that sort
of deception, they would face a serious risk of prosecution."

With the Guardian's Stone writing-
"Veteran campaign finance analysts say that the bevy of Trump-linked groups launched since his defeat raise new questions about his motives and political intentions," Sheila Krumholz, who leads the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics added-

"Trump's aggressive fundraising, using a variety of committees and surrogates, raises questions about whether his continual hints at running in 2024 is primarily a ploy for donations.
Trump may be more interested in fundraising than actually running, especially given how unprecedented his post-loss fundraising is."

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Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

8-2-2021

Donald Trump moved more than $200,00 donated to his Make America Great Again PAC into his own private business accounts, according to an analysis of his federal filings.

The money was moved in February, a month after Mr Trump left office. Money donated to PACs is meant to be spent solely on campaign efforts.

Forbes reports that the former president also set up a “leadership PAC”, which is generally used to support other candidates. Mr Trump took $30m from his Make America Great Again PAC and moved it to the new PAC, called Save America.

That PAC eventually grew to $90m, and Mr Trump took an additional $79,000 out of that PAC for his own uses.

Mr Trump's business, the Trump Organization, regularly interacted with his campaign PACs. In one instance, the Trump Organization charged his campaign PAC $38,000 in rent via the Trump Tower Commercial LLC, in which Mr Trump has 100 per cent interest.

During 2016, Mr Trump ran his campaign out of the skyscraper, but his 2020 campaign was partially run from Washington DC. Despite this, the Trump Organisation continued to collect rent for Trump Tower.

In total, the Trump Organization collected $188,000 in rent between January and June, all paid for through Trump's campaign donations.

Trump Restaurants LLC also collected rent from the PAC – even after the former president left office and during a time when tourists visiting Trump Tower were few due to the coronavirus pandemic – totalling $15,000, according to federal filings.

Save America, the leadership PAC, paid the Trump Hotel Collection $79,000 in total after Mr Trump left office, according to the White House. Those expenses were largely for lodging and meals.

Most watched
The Trump Organization did not comment on the self-dealing payments, but the former president did issue a statement boasting that his affiliated committees have approximately $100m of cash ready for use.

“These fundraising numbers, coupled with tremendous support in so many other ways, show that President Trump’s supporters want him to continue the fight,” the statement said.

Mr Trump has not yet committed to running another presidential campaign in 2024, though insiders have claimed he has told his dinner guests that he will once again compete for the Oval Office.

In the meantime, the Trump Organization is at the centre of an investigation by the Manhattan DA's office into alleged financial crimes.

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