WSJ reporter:
This is an astonishing amount of money, given the circumstances. https://t.co/Gf1YREdnjD
— Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) December 1, 2020
Just so it’s not overlooked, in the rush of events…
Trump entered office as a con-artist and he's leaving as a con-artist https://t.co/OM5tRMDHkr
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) December 1, 2020
President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $170 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election to shatter fundraising records set during the campaign, according to people with knowledge of the contributions.
The influx of political donations is one reason that Trump and some allies are inclined to continue a legal onslaught and public relations blitz focused on baseless claims of election fraud, even as their attempts have repeatedly failed in court and as key states continue to certify wins for President-elect Joe Biden.
Much of the money raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the president to use on political activities after he leaves office, while some of the contributions will go toward what is left of the legal fight…
That’s one way to keep funding those egoboosting rallies, of course. But as even the most inexperienced political reporter already knows, ‘political activities’ can be construed amazingly broadly, especially for a pol who’s left office with a lot left in their account(s).
… The money collected by the leadership PAC cannot be used directly for Trump’s own campaign purposes, but there are few other restrictions on how the money can be spent. For example, donations could be used to pay for events at Trump’s properties or to finance his travel or personal expenses…
Leadership PAC funds can’t be used to finance the campaign activity of the officeholder or former official who leads the PAC. Any contributing from the PAC to support other candidates for office must be done within federal contribution limits, and that money must come from legal sources.
But beyond that, there are no restrictions on how the official can spend leadership PAC money, said Kate Belinski, a campaign finance legal expert who formerly served as a lawyer at the FEC’s Enforcement Division.
“There’s not really a legal mechanism that would prevent somebody from enriching themselves with the contributions that they receive into their leadership PAC in the same way that personal-use restrictions would prohibit that for a campaign committee,” she said…
On The Road – Karen H – Fall in La Veta, CO
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole!
Been a long day. Time to give the cats their treats and head to bed.
Brachiator
Trump certainly knows his suckers, uh I mean, his base.
Major Major Major Major
Hey, if this is how the donors want to spend their money…
AJ - Mustard Search & Rescue Team
He loves the poorly educated…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: I would bet there are more small donors represented in that than in the campaign funding. No way the Mercers, the Uilheins or even my crackpot cousin who’s addlepated but really good with money are sending him cash now.
NotMax
At the moment munching on the last of the Thanksgiving fare*. May be even better tasting today than last week.
*Although still have just over a third of the cranberry relish left to enjoy with newer entrees.
dm
@Major Major Major Major: he “has done so much for them, and sacrificed so much for this country he loves, and gotten nothing but grief for it from coastal liberal elites”. I’m sure they’re happy to reward his kindness and selflessness.
ETA: sarcasm, folks. But I’ve seen a lot of just that sort of comment from people.
Kent
Honestly, fuckit.
If these people weren’t contributing to Trump’s private slush fund, they’d probably be handing over their cash to some evangelical church or other right wing politician who’d probably be doing worse things with it than subsidize Mar a Lago and Trump’s golf courses.
Not one dime of that $170 million was ever destined to be put to any sort of progressive or even neutral use. It was going to be used for toxic purposes regardless.
So honestly, I’m kind of ambivalent. The extent that Trump grifts these MAGA ilk, the less they will have to put it towards more evil ends.
NotMax
$170 million will put a dent in his and Melania’s combined annual bills for make-up.
//
Emma from FL
I will bet hard cash that a lot of true believers are sending him money they can barely afford. Pension money. Disability money. Social security money. Food and basic needs money. And there’s a small, mean part of me shrugging.
That bloody grifter has taken a big chunk of my empathy from me.
Leto
@NotMax: You know how much I have to spend to look this cheap? :P
WV Blondie
Hey, that $400 mil in loans won’t repay itself … So this might keep his creditors at bay for a little while.
Delk
That’s why those religious ‘leaders’ are demanding to have services. Their gravy trains are not stopping at their stations. Money going to trump doesn’t help pay for their private jets.
Gary K
He could pay his income tax bill for the next 227,000 years.
eclare
@WV Blondie: That’s what I was thinking about, the 400M. Anyone remember when it’s due?
danielx
Classic.
Once money comes into any organization associated with him, as far as he is concerned it’s his money. Which is to be spent or not according to his whims. No wonder he wants to keep up the grifting as long as possible, this is a lot better than peddling office space, condos or hotel rooms.
Because he doesn’t have to provide anything in return, and he doesn’t give a shit about awkward questions. Maybe the horse will learn to sing, as the old story goes, and maybe it won’t.* In the meantime the coin is rolling in. What could be better?
*Trump may truly believe he won; he may find it impossible to believe he lost because he just cannot fit it into his worldview. Whether he believes it or not, he is going to have to give it up sooner or later because there don’t seem to be any Jerry Rice types out there to grab the Hail Marys his legal team keeps tossing at the legal system. And by Jaysus Mary Joseph and all the angels and archangels, his departure can’t come soon enough.
NotMax
@danielx
“I’ll sign an executive order removing the 20th from the month of January. Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
//
prostratedragon
@eclare: As I recall, in several big chunks starting 2 years from now. Pretty sure it’s all due by about 2024.
sab
@Gary K: Can’t he just pardon himself from his federal tax issues?
Arclite
Anyone hear anything about the bribery for pardons scheme?
sab
@Leto: You should google Megan McCain’s kitchen if you want to see high spending to look tawdry.
Leto
@sab: My local grocery has started carrying pink Himalayan salt in the spice aisle. I think of her every time I see it.
Viva BrisVegas
Trump as GOAT. Grifter Of All Time.
He may be evil, he may be incompetent, but you’ve got to stand in awe of the single minded determination to chase down every single dime.
sab
@Leto: Thanks for the mental image.
bjacques
@Leto:
Wasn’t that Megan McArglebargle? When pink salt was a thing, it must have been a very ephemeral thing, because a year or two later, I went into a Marshall’s that was dumping the stuff at a few bucks a bag.
Burnspbesq
@sab:
The consensus among Con Law scholars seems to be that he can’t pardon himself. And even if he could, it’s pretty clear that a pardon would only shield him from criminal liability. If he has underpaid income or gift taxes, he would be on the hook for the deficiencies, interest, and penalties. If the deficiencies are due to fraud, the penalty is 75 percent of the tax due, and there is no statute of limitation.
sab
@Burnspbesq: That cheers me up a lot.
Gretchen
@sab: NY AG has 60+ sealed indictments ready to unseal January 21. State investigations, he can’t pardon those.
Jay
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/alleged-hate-groups-tax-breaks-registered-charities/?__twitter_impression=true#app
Ruckus
@Burnspbesq:
I think what he’s trying to do is to push all the collectors far enough forward that he never has to actually pay off. Play one against the other and let all the due bills die with him. And if they manage to collect from his inheritors he won’t give a fuck. Only problem I can see with this idea is that he thinks he’s perfect and will live forever. I think that’s another reason he wanted to continue to be president, he was protected by his position. And proving that he’s perfect. Of course there is a flaw with this plan, he is an incompetent asshole so he never figured that he wouldn’t get reelected. Another great plan foiled…. by the totality of his own bullshit.
Ruckus
@Jay:
Conservatism is a scam, a con, not a political identity, no matter what it may or may not have been once upon a time.
Amir Khalid
@bjacques:
You can find pink Himalayan salt everywhere now, even in the grocery stores of suburban Malaysia. These days it’s just another commonplace item.
lgerard
Prediction:
After January 20, 2021 the Scottish Government is going to express considerably more interest in the funding of trump’s golf courses.
opiejeanne
@Leto: I think that was another Megan, McArgleBargle.
hervevillechaizelounge
Because I’m always reading BJ a few hours behind this is a comment for the previous thread: older folks should consider adopting an older pet. There’s no need to be pet-less in your senior years.
Never emulate Trump in any way, shape or form;)
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I recently bought a bag of popcorn that supposedly was sprinkled with it. Didn’t taste any different.
I did not know that the salt actually comes from Pakistan.
Benno
@Brachiator: just up the road from me a bit. Two pounds of the stuff costs less than 40 cents. Ground so fine you can’t pick it up with your bare fingers or it will slide between you atoms and desiccate you from the inside out.
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
The fancy salts look pretty, but they don’t actually taste any different from plain old salt.
mrmoshpotato
So – he didn’t make this possible by himself. How much of his “grift support” will be fucked out of payment?
Dan B
@Amir Khalid: Some salts taste different if you eat them by themselves. A black salt (Hawaiian with fine volcanic rock I believe.) Had a mineral flavor. By the time it was on food it just made the food look dirty. It could work on squid ink pasta – maybe on purple potatoes.
mrmoshpotato
@Viva BrisVegas:
Yup. But he still sucks the Kremlin’s ass.
Luciamia
@dm: You’re not wrong. And some…if he told them to sell their house to help keep the socialist liberal demagogues at bay, they would.
Shalimar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s funny. The Trump campaign had trouble with small donors all year. They spent massive amounts of money on fundraising and weren’t getting even remotely close to the donations expected. Trump had loser stink on him all the way until election day. They may have denied it, but everyone could see the polls and the lousy performances.
Then the election came and his voters turned out in droves. He actually lost, but kept it close enough to claim it was stolen. And being an actual loser didn’t hurt him at all. People responded to the constant emails again.
Republicans see themselves as victims and no one is more pathetically victimized than Trump.
Amir Khalid
@Dan B:
Yeah, but who does that?
matt the somewhat reasonable
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw a story about some rich people who donated $2.5 million to the post-election fight fund wanting their money back because the results in court have been so bad.
Dan B
@Amir Khalid: A spoonful of salt keeps the doctor away! Didn’t you know that?
Replaced by the mortician in some instances….
Dan B
@matt the somewhat reasonable: It was one donor and he received no accounting or any progress reports on where the money was being utilized.
He’s suing.
Attorneys will upgrade their boats.
Attorneys for the win!
Jay
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s money that won’t be going to the RNC.
He has no reason not to stop running, and putting a chokehold on the RNC.
Not my money… So, let the suckers pay up??
briber
@Amir Khalid:
Cows.
JPL
@rikyrah: Good Morning!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kent: Less money for ammo.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay:
Funny to me that those “political opponents” are fellow Republicans. Funnier still that there is nothing political about the current cult.
Baud
Shit. I would damage democracy for $150 million.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: The “stab in the back” narrative tends to make republicans the target of trump cultists. They will be RINO* hunting the next few years, and trump will be egging them on. I am hoping trump makes this a theme Saturday if he goes through with his planned Georgia rally.
*I have a friend who got sucked into evangelical conservativism. He will proudly disclaim affiliation with the republican party, and in the next breath complain about RINOs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I am a schadenfreudelicious witness to the long predicted self destruction of the GOP, but there is a not small part of me that worries what will arise from the ashes.
Geminid
I read that Venus would be bright the first part of December. It sure is. I was just out on my porch and saw it, thought it was an airliner on the landing path for the local airport. But it never turned, just very gradually rose in the eastern sky.
Frankensteinbeck
The money will disappear with absurd speed. Trump is a spectacularly gullible mark himself. His businesses were already bleeding money before his presidency, and their income has nosedived except for presidential grift. That is about to shut off suddenly and completely. He buys useless self-aggrandizing shit like $20,000 portraits of himself. He is now hooked on expensive rallies that he has not been paying for. He’ll have massive extra expenses to comfort his depression. And this income stream depends entirely on the Republican base’s desperate desire to believe that their four year joy ride of cruelty isn’t, can’t be over. They have hung that hope entirely on the Supreme Court, and when the Supreme Court refuses to overturn the election, that’s when they give up. This unexpected bounty for Trump’s finances is just setting him up for a harder fall sooner than you would believe.
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: I doubt they can get 4 votes on the SC to even hear it.
Geminid
From Politico: Spotted Tuesday evening at an Arlington restaurant, Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo having dinner together. Planning for 2024?
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Nah, planning their escape to parts unknown on 1/20/21.
“You go that way, I’m gonna go this way.”
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: You thought those were menus they were perusing? Hah, more the fool you! They were schedules of flights to nations lacking extradition treaties with the USA!
SFAW
@Leto:
Mae West? Joan Rivers? I can’t remember from whom I first heard that one. It IS a good line, of course.
SFAW
“On this day, Donald Trump TRULY became a Millionaire.”
– Van Jones, probably
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Alito, Thomas, Rapey, Barrett, and Barr (who will get appointed via Executive Order). Maybe Gorsuch.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Too few Jews in the Rethug Partei for that to work well, I’m thinking.
ETA: Although RWMFs being what they are, probably don’t need too many for them to push that idea.
Brian
@SFAW: Dolly Parton
Brian
@SFAW: Dolly Parton
Geminid
@SFAW: Well, there are still plenty of “Globalist” RINOs.
Curious: I may be mistaken but I think that a few months ago you spoke of frayed relations with some pro-trump inlaws. Any progress on that front?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck: . I can see Trump finding new ways to gift of his base post Jan 20 like Trump 2024 Revenge Campaign. Or he will fundraise off the NY State investigations screaming persecution. But as you said, Trump will just get coned out of the money himself as fast as he cons it out of his base.
Another Scott
@Kent: I looked here for where the ActBlue ticker was on various days.
On September 21 it was at ~ $6.6B. Now it’s at $8.0B. roughly $19.6M/day over 72 days to Democrats and like-minded organizations.
It’s been 29 days since election day. That $150-170M is only about $5-6M a day to Donnie.
Sad.
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
@Brian:
Thanks. I guess I’m not surprised; she’s pretty sharp/cool.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Not saying it didn’t happen, but I don’t recall that. [I do have a sister-in-law and her husband who are Trumpers, but I don’t have a ton of contact with them, and I don’t recall discussing them herein. But my memory ain’t what it used to be.]
dm
@Another Scott: Election Day, I think ActBlue was somewhere around $7.2 or $7.4 billion (I wish I’d written it down). So Dems have picked up between $600 and $700 million in the past month.
J R in WV
@Geminid:
That may be enough punishment for Bill, having to be with and polite to Mike… Nah!
Just kidding!! but it is a funny thought.
How can either of them stand to be with the other one???
NotMax
@J R in WV
Word is they both sent the spaghetti back, demanding a recount of the meatballs.
//