El Trumpo siphons cash from election defence fund

By in US Economy

| 45 comments

El Trumpo doesn’t miss a trick. At Reuters:

As President Donald Trump seeks to discredit last week’s election with baseless claims of voter fraud, his team has bombarded his supporters with requests for money to help pay for legal challenges to the results: “The Left will try to STEAL this election!” reads one text.

But any small-dollar donations from Trump’s grassroots donors won’t be going to legal expenses at all, according to a Reuters review of the legal language in the solicitations.

A donor would have to give more than $8,000 before any money goes to the “recount account” established to finance election challenges, including recounts and lawsuits over alleged improprieties, the fundraising disclosures show.

The emailed solicitations send supporters to an “Official Election Defense Fund” website that asks them to sign up for recurring donations to “protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day.”

The fine print makes clear most of the money will go to other priorities.

A large portion of the money goes to “Save America,” a Trump leadership PAC, or political action committee, set up on Monday, and the Republican National Committee (RNC). Under Federal Election Commission rules, both groups have broad leeway in how they can use the funds.

The disclosures would allow Trump and the RNC to channel the donations into other political causes or campaigns, such as the two high-stakes January Senate runoff races in Georgia that could determine control of the Senate and are likely to rank among the most expensive races in U.S. history.

If you believe that this con man is defending the integrity of anything then more fool you.

David Llewellyn-Smith
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Comments

  1. RobotSenseiMEMBER

    Tokyo, 2021. Men’s 100m sprint. Winner crosses the line in 9.74s.
    Second times 9.81. The crowd erupts, flashbulbs going off everywhere. Our champ raises his arms, grabs a flag, starts a victory lap.

    But hang on! The runner up has launched a protest. He will not concede. How dare the “winner” raise his arms! The runner up clarifies: only legal strides should count, and the illegal ones discarded; you can’t argue with this position, he claims. The IOC will determine the winner, not the biased media who claim to have “witnessed” no illegal strides. How dare someone claim the race until the medal is around his neck!

    Celebrating before the medal ceremony. The gall of it.

    • The BurbWatcherMEMBER

      And, henceforth, every close race can be contested. Aspiring despots breathe a sigh of relief – it was really hard to effectively undermine democracy for a while there! ‘Tis a great day.

      However, maybe people will give up racing, since it just comes down to dispute anyway? It doesn’t matter if there are higher and lower-quality disputes – they should all be treated equally, because.

      (Also: Isn’t it ironic how snowflakey the ‘non-snowflakes’ are being about having their generally rubbish claims heard?)

    • Shades of MessinaMEMBER

      Sounds more like the walking event.

      Would be numerous grounds for a challenge if you went back and analysed every competitors steps.

    • tree

      “If it is true” that the other runner is a drug cheat it is only fair we wait for the drug test results to come back as well. Surely everyone believes in the right to clean sport?
      And I suspect that the winner is using drugs that we can’t test for yet, so it is only reasonable to award the victory to the second place runner.
      It wasn’t a landslide clear win, so for the good of the sport, a rerun of the race would be appropriate.
      Clearly the second place runner is only thinking of future generations of runners. It is not about trying to steal the winner’s glory…

    • Stewie Griffin

      But, but, but…. we were told Mack Horton did the right thing by refusing to get on the podium shared by Sun Yang.

  2. PalimpsestMEMBER

    Let’s be clear, he still has the power to pardon almost anyone for almost anything until end of January. Let’s not get too shocked about shenanigans yet. Keep your powder dry, because this is still just getting started. This should be a very intriguing time (pun intended).

  3. triageMEMBER

    Trumpy is a grifter, and a good one. An accomplished grifter not only is able to roger their targets but gets their appreciation as well.

  5. Clarence Thomas

    How many taxpayer dollars were wasted trying to find evidence of Russian “collusion” for three years?

    • chuckmuscleMEMBER

      Clearly you don’t understand that according to CNN, ABC, WaPo, MSNBC and friends that was a “correct” battle to fight.

      All media has lost its mind when it comes to cheer-leading 1 party or the other. See any of the excellent work by Matt Taibbi on this issue.

      Am developing the hypothesis that any kind of re-reporting news from the mainstream just make YOU part of the cartoon that has become our modern political discourse, be it Labor/Liberal or Rep/Dem whatever. All part of the same Looting Party; and that is what this site should be focusing its time in for the good fight.

      Anyone who thinks Biden isn’t going to loot that great nation of the US for his own personal gain (same as Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton before him), isn’t thinking at all.

  6. MCBoyah

    There is a category of fail videos about the perils of celebrating too early. Just wait for the final result. Everything else is noise.

  7. BuzzyMEMBER

    Trump is a conman. That’s his mindset. When you get like this you think everyone is trying to rip you off because you are trying to rip everyone off.

  12. reusachtigeMEMBER

    Anyone who challenges the sick system so as to maximise their profits earns my respect. Good on him!

  13. David

    D.L.S. has really revealed himself with this ‘El Trumpo’ stream of articles. Makes me question his integrity as a journalist. ‘Baseless claims of fraud’ is not something a prudent journalist would comment.