Showing posts with label American Made Media Consultants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Made Media Consultants. Show all posts

Friday, December 18, 2020

The Grifter in Chief

Deflated by a loss he has yet to acknowledge, Mr. Trump has cushioned the blow by coaxing huge sums of money from his loyal supporters — often under dubious pretenses — raising roughly $250 million since Election Day along with the national party.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, according to people familiar with the matter, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. Those funds, which far exceed what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, provide him with tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: He could use the money to quell rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, fund his travels and rallies, hire staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far-from-certain 2024 run.

[...]

During the campaign, many of the large expenditures, like television and digital ad buys, were routed through a secretive L.L.C. called American Made Media Consultants. That allowed the Trump campaign and its joint committee with the national party to effectively shield many details of its spending, including who was being paid and how much. More than $700 million has gone through the L.L.C. since the beginning of 2019.

  NYT
That's the money-laundering grift set up by Kushner outlined in a previous post.
For Mr. Trump, the quarter-billion dollars he and the party raised over six weeks is enough to pay off all of his remaining campaign bills and to fund his fruitless legal challenges and still leave tens of millions of dollars.

[...]

Those who have spoken with Mr. Trump say he appears shrunken, and over his job; this detachment is reflected in a Twitter feed that remains stubbornly more focused on unfounded allegations of fraud than on the death toll from the raging pandemic.

[...]

Mr. Trump had been tentatively planning to go to Georgia on Saturday, according to a senior Republican official, to support the two Republicans in Senate runoff races there. But he is still angry at the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state for accepting the election result, and simply doesn’t want to make the trip.
Petulent POS.
Still, the Trump political apparatus has taken advantage of the grass-roots energy and excitement over the two runoffs to juice its own fund-raising. Email and text solicitations have pitched Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either Republican senator on the ballot, irritating some Senate G.O.P. strategists.
And yet, they still kiss the fat ass of the orange grifter.

"Irritating". Woooo. Do they have Susan Collins furrowed brows?
Instead, the fine print shows 75 percent of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Mr. Trump’s new PAC, called Save America, with 25 percent to the Republican National Committee.
The art of the deal.
After weeks of shouting “FRAUD” to supporters in emails and asking them to back an “Election Defense Fund” (which also sent 75 percent of donations to his new PAC), the Trump operation has subtly shifted its tone and focus, returning to more sustainable pre-election themes, like hawking signed hats and opposing socialism.

[...]

Even some of his biggest post-election spending that his campaign labeled recount-related was routed through the L.L.C. that Ms. Trump served on the board of, including $2.2 million for “SMS advertising,” better known as text messaging.
That's some serious pay for sending texts.
Some campaign finance experts have speculated that Mr. Trump might try to use the excess of cash in his new PAC, formally known as a leadership PAC, to pay for his own personal future legal quagmires, as he faces investigations once he leaves office.
You can bet your life on it.
Just since mid-October, the Trump Victory Committee, a joint account operated with the R.N.C., has paid more than $710,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection, while his re-election account has continued to pay more than $37,000 per month to rent space in Trump Tower.

[...]

[A]s a former president, Mr. Trump will be allocated a certain amount of taxpayer money for staff and office space for life after leaving the White House, and he is beginning to have discussions about which aides from the West Wing will accompany him.

[...]

He has already endorsed Ronna McDaniel, a close ally, to serve another term as chair of the R.N.C. He has floated primary challenges to Republicans, such as Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who have crossed him by rejecting his baseless theories of election fraud. He has even asked aides how he can retain control of the party if he isn’t a candidate.

[...]

Announcing for president would trigger tighter rules on Mr. Trump’s political spending and added financial disclosures, including of Mr. Trump’s personal finances, that simply operating a PAC would not.
So he'll just tease the idea. He won't announce.
“There’s no bully pulpit as large as the presidency, but nevertheless, President Trump is likely to play a significant role in the future of the Republican Party,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “It’s very difficult to imagine him following the same pattern as George W. Bush, Barack Obama and other presidents have followed in keeping their mouths shut and letting the new president try to govern.”
You can bet your life on that, too. He won't.

No wonder he's talking about handing out family pardons like Christmas presents.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Grifters R Us

Jared Kushner, approved the creation of a campaign shell company that secretly paid the president's family members and spent almost half of the campaign's $1.26 billion war chest, a person familiar with the operation told Insider.

[...]

It paid some of Trump's top advisors and family members, while shielding financial and operational details from public scrutiny.

[...]

From January 2019 through the middle of November, the Trump campaign and an affiliated political committee together spent $617 million through American Made Media Consultants.

  Business Insider
Will Biden's DoJ just let this slide?
When Kushner and others created the company in April 2018, they picked Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump to become its president, Vice President Mike Pence's nephew John Pence as its vice president, and Trump campaign Chief Financial Officer Sean Dollman as its treasurer and secretary.

[...]

Some Trump advisors have long accused Parscale of trying to hide money from the now outgoing president, occasionally citing AMMC as an example of his obfuscation.

But the campaign spent the bulk of the money at AMMC — $415 million — after Trump fired Parscale as his campaign manager on July 15.

[...]

For months, some of Trump's top advisors and campaign staff told Insider they had no idea how the shell company functioned, which cast an air of mystery around the operation.

Trump's campaign leaders even launched an internal audit of the shell company and operations that were conducted under former campaign manager Brad Parscale but never reported the results of that review.

Some of those same advisors said they didn't learn about John Pence's and Lara Trump's involvement until Insider contacted them for this story.

[...]

"Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place. John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members," Trump campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told Insider on Friday.

[...]

Using the shell company also allowed [then campaign manager Brad] Parscale to keep Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle — the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. — on his payroll, the person familiar said.

[...]

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, led by former Republican Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter, filed a civil complaint with the FEC in July accusing the Trump campaign of "disguising" about $170 million worth of campaign spending in large part "by laundering the funds" through AMMC.

[...]

Insider independently verified details of this person's account with other people close to the Trump campaign.

[...]

If the federal government suspects a "knowing and willful" violation of election law has occurred, the Department of Justice has the power to open a criminal investigation into a political actor.
But will they? I won't hold my breath.
While such investigations are relatively uncommon, several former Justice Department and FEC officials previously told Insider that Justice Department officials may already be discreetly investigating Trump's reelection activity.
We'll see.

I wonder how Brad Parscale feels about having taken the full public brunt for misusing campaign funds.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.