Trump's Sleight of Hand: Shouting Fraud, Pocketing Donors' Cash for Future (NYT)

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/trump-cash.html

Trump’s Sleight of Hand: Shouting Fraud, Pocketing Donors’ Cash for Future
With breathless, often misleading appeals, the former president promised small donors that he was using the money to fight the election results, but in fact stored much of it for future use.
By Shane Goldmacher and Rachel Shorey
Feb. 1, 2021, 5:25 p.m. ET

Former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December as hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters listened and opened their wallets.

But the Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to those claims. Instead, Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. stored away much of the money — $175 million or so — even as they continued to issue breathless, aggressive and often misleading appeals for cash that promised it would help with recounts, the rooting out of election fraud and even the Republican candidates’ chances in the two Senate runoff races in Georgia.

What fraction of the money Mr. Trump did spend after the election was plowed mostly into a public-relations campaign and to keep his perpetual fund-raising machine whirring, with nearly $50 million going toward online advertising, text-message outreach and a small television ad campaign.

Only about $10 million spent by Mr. Trump’s campaign went to actual legal costs, according to an analysis of new Federal Election Commission filings from Nov. 4 through the end of the year.

Far more is now sitting in the coffers of a new political action committee, Save America, that Mr. Trump formed after the election and that provides him a fat war chest he can use to pay advisers, fund travel and maintain a political operation. Mr. Trump’s new PAC had $31 million in the bank at the end of 2020 and an estimated $40 million more sitting in a shared party account waiting to be transferred into it.

[Thekaspervote]

1. Thing is, he won't use that money to start a 3rd party or launch a re-election campaign

He pockets it. Works for us, bilks money from other serious gop prez contenders.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Pocketing?

More like going straight out to cover debt service so collection efforts can be held off.
I don't think it's ending up in his pockets.
Money never does end up with him.
He just suckers lenders into giving him money to pay the other lenders.

[StClone]

5. You beat me to it. Interest on his debt is eating his shorts

Ever watch a hamster running in their wheel? Trump is that hamster, with the IQ of a rodent, running vigorously in a standstill. If we could ask the hamster why he runs so furiously and gets nowhere what is the point? Nowhere!? The hamster replies, then how come things keeps moving under my feet.

As an interesting aside about wild mice and running wheels:

If an exercise wheel sits in a forest, will mice run on it?

Every once in a while, science asks a simple question and gets a straightforward answer.

In this case, yes, they will. And not only mice, but also rats, shrews, frogs and slugs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/science/study-shows-that-mice-run-for-fun-not-just-for-lab-work.html

[Budi]

3. Yup. Anytime a politician cult leader is shouting bumper sticker slogans & cashing in,

Then its a scam.

[Walleye]

4. A ConMan will never quit a scam when he's raking in the cash