Tag: Trump greed

Trump’s PAC collected $75 million this year, but so far the group has not put money into pushing for the 2020 ballot reviews he touts

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Former president Donald Trump’s political PAC raised about $75 million in the first half of this year as he trumpeted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but the group has not devoted funds to help finance the ongoing ballot review in Arizona or to push for similar endeavors in other states, according to people familiar with the finances.

Instead, the Save America leadership PAC — which has few limits on how it can spend its money — has paid for some of the former president’s travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the group’s inner workings. The PAC has held onto much of its cash.

Even as he assiduously tracks attempts by his allies to cast doubt on the integrity of last year’s election, Trump has been uninterested in personally bankrolling the efforts, relying on other entities and supporters to fund the endeavors, they said. Continue reading.

Trump charged Secret Service nearly $10,200 in May for agents’ rooms

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Former president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show.

The records — released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request — show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in the first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life.

Since Trump left office in January, U.S. taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $50,000 for rooms used by Secret Service agents, records show. Continue reading.

The RNC is still using donors’ money to line Trump’s pockets: FEC filing

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The Republican National Committee is apparently not done using donors’ money to line the pockets of former President Donald Trump.

Business Insider reports that the RNC shelled out $175,000 this past spring for a donor event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in which the twice-impeached former president told attendees that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was a “dumb son of a b*tch.”

A Business Insider review of Federal Elections Commission filings shows that the RNC has spent roughly $2.6 million on Trump properties over the last 14 years, a trend that really picked up steam since 2016 when Trump become the party’s nominee for the presidency. Continue reading.

Self-proclaimed billionaire Trump taking tens of thousands in pension payments since leaving office

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Donald Trump, who loves to say he’s a billionaire but always seems to avoid proving that, has already taken tens of thousands of dollars in government pensions.

Since leaving the White House in January, the twice-impeached one-term president has taken $65,600 in presidential pension payments, a spokesperson for the General Services Administration told Insider.

Trump unquietly donated his $400,000 annual salary during his four-year term, as he had promised to do as a candidate in 2016, and it’s not clear what he has done with the pension he’s been receiving since January. Continue reading.

Trump’s Latest Grift Is His ‘Official Election Defense Fund’

Early Friday evening, professor of law and political science at UC Irvine Rick Hasen tweeted out that “If you give money to Trump’s recount/postelection litigation efforts, half of that money will go towards retiring his campaign debt instead, per the fine print.” The tweet was accompanied by a screenshotof the purported fine print on one of the Trump campaign’s fundraising emails, that said “50 percent of each contribution, up to a maximum of $2,800 ($5,000), to be designated toward DJTFP’s 2020 general election debt retirement until such debt is retired.” The emails have been sweatily sent out from the sinking garbage can fire called his campaign since Election Day.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this is indeed true. In fact, the con man-to-the-end and soon-to-be former disgraced and impeached president of the United States’ “official election defense fund” might actually be more about retiring his money-laundering campaign’s debt than anything else.

According to the Journal, while some of the “protect the election” fundraising emails direct marks to pages with fine print like the one Hasen pointed out above, others send MAGA supporters to pages with different fine print: “The fine print on those solicitations says 60 percent of a contribution helps the campaign retire debt and 40 percent goes to the Republican National Committee.” Continue reading.

How Donald Trump’s insatiable hunger for more bilked the US government for $2.5 billion

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Remember this number: $3. 

That’s how much Trump charged the federal government for a glass of water in April of 2018 when he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. According to the Washington Post, Trump’s company also charged the government “$13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements,” over the two days he held meetings with Abe at the resort. But one day, Trump was scheduled to meet with Abe without aides and advisers, with no meal service or cocktails or any other celebratory nonsense. Just the two leaders, alone in a room, talking. According to the Post, the bill for that day contained a line item reading, “Bilateral meeting. Water. $3.00 each.”

Donald Trump has been paid “at least $2.5 million by the U.S. government,” since taking office, according to official documents obtained by the Post. Trump has made more than 280 visits to his own hotels and golf clubs over the last four years, and the payments covered costs for “hotel rooms, ballrooms, cottages, rental houses, golf carts, votive candles, floating candles, candelabras, furniture moving, resort fees, decorative palm trees, strip steak, chocolate cake, breakfast buffets, $88 bottles of wine and $1,000 worth of liquor for White House aides.” according to the Post. Continue reading.

Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties

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‘The 45th President’: One in a series looking back at the Trump presidency

President Trump welcomed the Japanese prime minister at Mar-a-Lago, in front of a towering arrangement of roses. The two could have met in Washington, but Trump said his private club was a more comfortable alternative.

“It is, indeed, the Southern White House,” Trump said, greeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in front of the press in April 2018.

For Trump, there was another, hidden benefit. Money.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s company would get paid to host his summit.

In the next two days, as Trump and Abe talked about trade and North Korea, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club billed the U.S. government $13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements. Continue reading.

Trump Hotels Reap Hidden Profits From State Department

Donald Trump makes a big show of giving away his annual paycheck to some agency each year. He can afford to, since the Secret Service has rewarded him with two years’ worth of pay just in the money it has spent on golf carts. Really. And then there’s the money that the Air Force has dropped at Trump’s Scottish golf resort. And how Trump has doubled the dues at several of his clubs so that people wanting insider access have to pony up at least $200,000 to bend his elbow in the buffet line (for the buffets that they are still having despite COVID-19).

Assembling the full list of all the ways Trump has tapped his position to line his pockets over the past four years, is a project that will probably still be occupying scholars in the year 3020. However, there is at least one government department that seems to have taken a shot at assembling a compendium. The State Department has put together a 450-page tome showing all the ways it slipped dollars to the boss. 

That report is ready to go … they’re hiding it until after the election. Continue reading.

How Trump used the U.S. tax code to his benefit in three ways

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On Sunday, the New York Times reported it had obtained nearly two decades’ worth of President Trump’s tax information. Since then, most public attention has focused on what the Times reported about Trump’s federal income tax payments: He paid just $750 for the year in 2016, and then another $750 for 2017.

But the Times story also revealed three arrangements in which Trump’s company used the U.S. tax code to its benefit — to lower Trump’s taxes, or to make the IRS refund tens of millions in taxes he had already paid.

In these three cases, tax law experts say, Trump’s company ventured into complex legal territory — areas in which other companies have faced penalties for stretching the rules too far. Both the Trump Organization and the IRS did not respond to requests for comment. Continue reading.

Trump’s D.C. Hotel Jacked Up Its Prices as Trump Began Plotting a D.C.-Based Convention

The president hasn’t committed to giving his acceptance speech at the White House. But his nearby hotel has conspicuously begun charging way more for the weekend it’s scheduled.

As President Donald Trump hints that he plans to deliver his nomination speech from the White House on Aug. 27, the hotel bearing his name down the street is making a power play of its own: spiking its room rates by more than 60 percent for those convention dates. 

Listings for rooms at the Trump International Hotel in D.C., via Hotels.com, show rooms for one adult on the night of the address starting at $795 and running as high as $2,070.

That price tag represents a massive increase from the $495 starting rate currently offered for the dates one week following and one week prior. For three days before Trump’s scheduled speech—which were originally scheduled to be the dates of the GOP convention in Charlotte, North Carolina—the hotel is charging $695 a night for its cheapest room. The hotel will begin charging $795 that Thursday, and continue through the weekend, before dropping back to $495 on Monday. Continue reading.