I think there’s a non trivial chance Trump won’t be able to make the $175M bond either. So apparent victory will actly mean ten more days of begging, stories about his precarious finances, speculation about bankruptcy, all leading up to failing to get the smaller amount either.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 26, 2024
A.B. Stoddard, at the Bulwark — “Trump’s Legal Fee Scam Is Just the Start, and Republicans Know It”:
REPUBLICANS KNEW MAKING HISTORY by nominating a four-time-indicted individual for the presidency would be, well, a little complicated. They knew they would have to explain away an insurrection and the theft of national secrets. They knew they would have to vouch for him against “racist” prosecutors in New York and Georgia, and a “weaponized” Department of Justice for bringing “fake” charges against him.
Fortunately they were assured that Donald Trump could, and would, pay for millions upon millions of dollars in legal bills, and—after anemic fundraising and an uninterrupted string of defeats—the GOP was getting its act together and preparing to win everywhere in this critical election year.
And then last week, Trump’s legal fee scam came to light when the Associated Press noticed the fine print on an invitation to a megadonor event next month:
Donations to the Trump 47 Committee will first be used to give the maximum amount allowed under federal law to Trump’s campaign. Anything left over from the donation next goes toward a maximum contribution to Save America, and then anything left from there goes to the RNC and then to state political parties.
… So at massive-dollar events, most of the money will still go to the RNC, but at smaller fundraising events, much of it will go to Trump. The arrangement allows Trump “to tap funds from larger donors for his legal matters without the money ever passing through the RNC,” the New York Times wrote…
In a normal political party a guy who is bragging that he has “ALMOST FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS IN CASH, A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF WHICH I INTENDED TO USE IN MY CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT,” wouldn’t be diverting money from the party coffers to pay for his criminal habit…
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