MAGA wants to launder political donations -- through God

[marmar]

MAGA wants to launder political donations — through God
Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission aims to turn churches into PACs

By Andrew Daugherty
Pastor and Writer.
Published July 18, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) The most efficient campaign finance vehicle in American history is tax-exempt, requires no donor disclosure and is available in virtually every zip code in the country. For 70 years, it has operated under one rule: It cannot endorse a political candidate.

The Religious Liberty Commission, which delivered its report to President Donald Trump on June 26, would like to remove that rule. They’re calling it religious freedom.

As a Christian minister of an American Baptist congregation, I’ve spent more than 20 years in a pulpit — long enough to know the difference between protecting a church and conscripting one. A government that wants to free the church, to borrow Trump’s language, is usually trying to use it.

Since 1954, the Johnson Amendment has restricted churches, religious organizations and other tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing political candidates or funneling tax-deductible donations into partisan campaigns. Pastors and faith leaders can preach on any moral or social issue, including justice, poverty, immigration, war. The only line is at the intersection of tax-exempt status and candidate endorsements. In other words, the amendment is the last structural barrier between the American church and full absorption into the machinery of partisan politics. ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/07/18/maga-wants-to-launder-political-donations-through-god/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. That's pretty sneaky.

Instead of contributing to a PAC, you donate to your church and your church funnels the money to a campaign.

[tanyev]

2. They have chosen their god.

[chouchou]

3. Hallelujah ! We're going back to the Dark Ages.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. I would expect nothing less from the guy

who can change the sex of whole populations.

[Hey Joe]

5. Their biblical Jesus would strongly disagree

Do any of these fuckwits actually ever READ
their bibles?
Religion to these people is nothing more than a cheap brag or a farcical excuse.

[2naSalit]

6. Every time I see...

These church schemes I think about my buddy, Johnny Hale, who rote and recorded a song that starts out with,

"Give me all your money and I'll save your soul!
Jesus christ is a friend of mine and I'll tell him..."