for all his golden toiletsFormer President Donald Trump He is famous for his stinginessWith his personal money as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars he has extracted from his supporters over the years. This is the main reason why government watchdogs are sounding the alarm about funding a new campaign deposit It shows, one month before the midterm elections, a staggering $20 million political donation from Trump.
The contribution – Trump’s largest ever – moved from the PAC to leading Save America on October 3 to a new Trump-aligned PAC, called Make America Great Again Inc. On the same day, an old pro-Trump board member threw another $8.9 million Behind the new group.
Super PACs can spend unlimited amounts of money to support candidates, so on the face of it, the donation can be said to be Trump’s generous contribution to the MAGA cause during a crucial election. But as a number of campaign finance experts have pointed out, the details here suggest that Trump is really trying to get around laws that would have prevented him from spending his personal inventory in the 2024 presidential election.
said Paul S. Ryan, a veteran campaign finance lawyer who is now deputy executive director at the funders’ commission on civic engagement, said that was the “only plausible explanation.”
The one thing Trump can’t do with the millions and millions of dollars he has raised for leading the PAC is support himself. Ryan told the Daily Beast: “The only reasonable explanation for this move is to divert that money to be spent on his campaign.
Jordan Leibowitz, director of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, made the same observation.
“Trump can use Save America’s money for almost anything he wants — except for his campaign support,” Leibovitz said. If he wanted to use it to help Republicans in the midterm elections, he would. Trump is always about Trump. This seems like a way for him to funnel money to help his candidacy before he goes public.”
When Trump created Save America after the 2020 election, he established it as a leadership PAC, which has both advantages and disadvantages. For Trump, the obvious benefits would be lax regulations on spending – leadership’s political action committees are notorious for being “irrational money” for personal expenses. Trump could take the millions he’s made and spend on his business, friends, and his wife’s favorite luxury fashion designer, for example.
But the big drawback for Trump, as he prepares for his comeback in 2024, is that he cannot use the PAC leadership’s money to fund his political activism. That’s a lot of money – the total 138 million dollars Raised so far with about 70 million dollars He’s still sitting there at his leading fundraising account.
However, one of the things Trump can do with this money is spend unlimited amounts of it to help his allies. In fact, Save America can act just like a super PAC in this regard. Which suggests, according to documented Deputy Executive Director Brendan Fisher, that the Trump team is trying to “industrial denial” so that they can spend money later in support of Trump’s 2024 presidential election.
“Once Trump becomes a nominee, it would clearly be illegal to transfer Save America money to a Super PAC. But Trump appears to be trying to manufacture deniability by making transfers now, and by having MAGA Inc. spend some of the amount in the mid-term of 2022. In this way, the Trump team might argue that Save America gave MAGA Inc. to support Trump-supported candidates, and it so happened that the super PAC ended up with remaining money that it independently chose to spend to support Trump’s march in 2024, Fisher said.
Moreover, if Trump’s goal is really to support the MAGA midterm candidates, Fisher continued, there is no reason for Trump to give Save America money to a super PAC. In fact, the move actually places more limits on how Trump can help his friends.
“As a hard-money PAC, Save America really has more flexibility to support other candidates than the super PAC,” Fisher explained. “Save America and MAGA Inc. can spend unlimited amounts on ads that support candidates, but only Save America can also make direct contributions to candidates. By transferring Save America funds to a Super PAC, the funds can no longer be used for direct contributions.” .
Ryan agreed. “Moving the money suggests that he wants to spend it on himself,” he said. “It’s illegal, but that appears to be the motive and is likely to get away with it.”
Ryan was referring to federal laws that prohibit candidates from coordinating with top political action committees on fundraising and spending efforts — a charge that is hard to prove.
Aaron Sherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, said it appears Trump will be skating, thanks to historically lax federal enforcement on the matter.
“Coordination is certainly still illegal here, although the FEC has shown a lack of willingness to enforce coordination rules and laws. There is no strong weapon here per se, but it appears to be an exploit, three party commissioners showed,” Sherp said. Republicans are unwilling to investigate and enforce existing coordination laws.” “Until they do, special interests and dark money groups will continue to exploit loopholes at the expense of ordinary voters.”
But with this loophole, Trump has turned the traditional “black money” movement on its head. For years, candidates have tried to find loopholes that would allow them to take advantage of PAC’s super-money, which can be raised from major donors and companies in unlimited amounts. However, Trump’s Save America PAC project has an entirely different donor base.
“What Trump is doing is preying on small donors,” Ryan said. “He doesn’t need to go down the huge PAC route, because he takes every dollar he can from small, often very old donors, and shoves it into his campaign coffers. The move seems to serve that purpose — finding a way to use the fraudulent money for political purposes.” .
The Department of Justice has reportedly opened an investigation into Save America’s fundraising practices, after House committee members clarified Jan. 6 what they claimed was a cyber fraud scheme to get donors out of hundreds of millions of dollars through electoral lies.
Ultimately, Fisher said, the bottom line wouldn’t lie.
As the FEC reports, MAGA Inc super PAC has already spent about $11 million in the midterm elections. However, Fisher noted, that doesn’t mean the group used any of Trump’s money, given that the Super PAC has already raised more than $11 million from sources other than Save America.
“This means that the $20 million transferred from Save America to MAGA Inc is still physically available to run Trump in 2024,” Fisher said. “And any transition from Save America to Super PAC in the final weeks before the election likely won’t be spent.”
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