Trump’s election challenge looks like a scam to line
his pockets
Opinion by
Columnist
November 11, 2020 at 4:58 p.m. CST
President
Trump isn’t really trying to overturn the election. He’s simply running one
more scam before he leaves office that would enable him to enrich himself.
That’s
the way it appears, at least, from the scores of fundraising emails his
campaign has sent out since the election. He seems to be asking for funds to
challenge the election, but the fine print shows that the money could let him
line his own coffers. The tin-pot-dictator routine looks more as if it’s about
passing the tin cup.
“They’re
trying to STEAL this Election,” declared one such Trump campaign fundraising
missive Wednesday afternoon. from “Donald J. Trump, President of the United
States.”
“I
promise you my team is fighting the clock to DEFEND the integrity of this
Election, but we cannot do it alone. We need EVERY Patriot, like YOU, to step
up and make sure we have the resources to keep going. … Please contribute ANY
AMOUNT RIGHT NOW to DEFEND the Election.”
But at
the provided link to
the “OFFICIAL ELECTION DEFENSE FUND,” the legalese at the end says something
rather different:
Sixty
percent of the contribution, up to $5,000, goes to “Save America,” Trump’s
newly created leadership PAC. And 40 percent of the contribution up to $35,500,
goes to the Republican National Committee’s operating account, its political
(not legal) fund.
Only
after reaching the first maximum would a single penny go to Trump’s “Recount
Account,” and only after reaching the second maximum would a penny go to the
RNC’s legal account.
“It’s a
straight-up bait and switch,” Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and
litigation at Common Cause, tells me. Such email solicitations target small
donors, so for the “overwhelming majority of people contributing … none of
their money will end up in recount accounts” or be used for otherwise
challenging the election.
Rather,
it will be used to extend Trump’s influence over the RNC during the Biden
presidency and to build up his leadership PAC, which amounts to a “slush fund”
for Trump’s personal use. “There is no limit to how much Donald Trump can pay
himself or any member of his family under ‘Save America,’” Ryan notes.
Earlier
versions of the “election defense fund” email solicitations indicated the funds
were to be used to retire Trump’s campaign debt. “Presumably he raised enough
to retire that debt," says Ryan, "and he’s building this new slush
fund.”
Should
we be surprised?
Trump
has used the presidency itself for self-enrichment, so there’s no reason to
think an election defeat would stop him. He has funneled vast amounts of taxpayer
dollars and political supporters’ funds to his hotels, golf clubs and various
properties around the world. Over the years, he has used his charity for
self-benefit, he has had favorable treatment by foreign governments, and he has
had hundreds of millions in debt
forgiven by creditors.
As The
Post’s David Fahrenthold wrote last month,
Trump’s properties have billed taxpayers at least $2.5 million for such things
as: $7,000 for a dinner, $6,000 for flowers, $17,000 monthly for a cottage, up
to $650 a night for hotel rooms, $1,000 for drinks for the White House staff
and even $3 for drinking water.
The
president isn’t the only one in Trump world apparently misleading
well-intentioned contributors.
Steve
Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, faces federal charges that he
defrauded contributors who thought they were giving money to build a wall on
the Mexican border. Arrested on a Chinese billionaire’s yacht, he’s accused
of stealing more than $1 million from
funds donated to “We Build the Wall.”
But the
contest-the-election scam is a dangerous game. Trump’s refusal to cooperate
with the Biden transition jeopardizes national security by leaving the United
States vulnerable in a way the 9/11 Commission specifically warned about. It’s
further discrediting the institutions of American democracy (the Trump-backing
Republican secretary of state of Georgia now faces calls for his resignation from
fellow Republican officeholders and death threats for simply
doing his job). And it’s further paralyzing the country by falsely convincing
millions of Trump supporters that something untoward happened in the election.
The New
York Times reported that it contacted election
officials in all 50 states and not one, Democrat or Republican, found evidence
that fraud or irregularities played a role in the election outcome.
The
Post reports that the administration is 0 for 6 with
its fraud claims so far, as courts reject the frivolous and unsubstantiated
allegations.
Republican
lawmakers, led by the shameless Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (Ky.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Senate provocateur-in-residence Ted Cruz (Tex.), are
indulging Trump’s nonsense claims, regardless of the harm to national security
and confidence in U.S. elections.
And in
doing so, they’re helping to scam their own supporters into further enriching
Trump.
