Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:11 pm
*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
Ever since America’s politics were dominated by which side can spend the most money, the GOP’s entire game has been about gathering, spending, winning, and helping the wealthiest donors make more money than they invested; this is particularly true since 2010. It must have been stunning, then, that a con man television celebrity parlayed that confidence man’s ability to swindle Republican donors and voters into not only winning the nomination from establishment candidates, but allowing him to tap into Republican donors’ bank for personal profit.
Donald Trump is wont to boast he was above the GOP establishment and didn’t need its money, or aid, and that he would self-finance his presidential aspirations. Of course, that claim was as big a lie as any he told over the course of the campaign, and in mid-May he inked a deal with the Republican National Committee (RNC) that gave him virtually unfettered access to the RNC’s “top-notch fundraising operation” that was worth tens-of-millions of dollars of other people’s money to run his campaign.
On the same day the RNC made the big-money deal with the devil, Donald Trump’s campaign issued “five- and six-figure checks” to none other than Donald Trump by way of his properties for his campaign’s congratulatory events that occurred months earlier; long before he secured the nomination or the RNC wealthy donors’ money. As reported by S.V. Date with Huffington Post, “the GOP establishment had not only been defeated, it was now actually paying for a March 15 Florida victory party where Trump defeated the GOP establishment” and hosted a high-priced shindig attended primarily by members of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach country club.
In total, almost before the ink was dry on the “big money deal,” about $1 million of RNC donors’ money went directly to Trump-owned businesses. Nearly half-a-million went straight to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for hosting the 2 Florida victory parties and a news conference. If a million dollars of other people’s money seems an outrageous amount of money for a couple of private parties and a press conference, it is because the Trump campaign could have held all three events at “the nearby West palm Beach Marriott for less than $45,000.” However, Donald Trump wouldn’t have profited personally if the events were held elsewhere.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, it isn’t clear if any other expenses were covered beside those “listed” as “facility rental/catering.” There is also a question of whether Trump violated Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules requiring expenses to be disclosed in the exactly the same month they were incurred; not when they were finally paid only because the RNC opened its coffers. In the case of the Florida campaign celebrations, that would have been a mandatory requirement an honest campaign would have met at least two months prior to the Trump campaign’s filing “sort of” detailing the extremely hefty price tag for two parties and a news conference.
It would seem obvious to the RNC’s donors, large and small alike, that Trump is fleecing the GOP and pocketing the fruits of an ill-inspired “deal” to fund the con man’s campaign. That is the assessment of no small number of GOP insiders and campaign finance observers alike. According to Paul S. Ryan with the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, the timing of the payments is, at the very least, “curious.” Mr. Ryan also said that the “heavy spending” on his own properties is “unprecedented.”
“It doesn’t look right, even if it is legal. Any way you slice it, this level of self-dealing looks bad. It looks like a candidate who is pocketing donors’ money.”
It looks like Trump is pocketing donors’ money? Really? It is Trump pocketing donors’ money and both establishment Republicans supporting the rip-off artist and anti-Trump Republicans are relatively certain those donors “probably don’t know the details about how Trump’s campaign is spending their money.”
One Florida Republican strategist, Rick Wilson said, “I think they’re only vaguely aware. It’s Putinesque.” Another establishment Republican, Stuart Stevens, a high-ranking aide to 2012’s GOP nominee Mitt Romney said, “It’s such a scam.”
Of course it’s a scam because that exact same scam is one way Donald Trump has been paying himself tens-of-million dollars using money that belonged to other hardworking Americans and small and large businesses alike. It is no revelation that Trump typically pays himself millions of dollars in “salary” using construction loan money that is allotted for contractors and suppliers on his hotel, and specifically his, casino construction projects; it’s why the people doing the work and providing materials never get paid while Trump pockets millions in salary, files for bankruptcy and then flies around in a personal private jet aircraft.
There is an archaic object lesson about getting too close or trying to help a poisonous snake by picking it up to save its life only to be fatally bitten. When the Good Samaritan lays dying it asks the snake “why did you bite me after I save your life.” The viper smirks and replies, “You knew I was a poisonous snake when you picked me up; of course I was going to bite you, I’m a poisonous snake.”
This is applicable to the GOP signing a deal with Trump giving him free access to tens-of-millions of dollars of donors’ money he promptly doled out to himself. Republicans knew Trump is a con man, a liar, and a thief and yet they still gave him the keys to their bank along with their blessings to spend as he saw fit. No-one feels much sympathy for establishment Republicans, the Republican National Committee, or their donors, In fact, what one seriously hopes for is that the RNC revels in the fact that instead of helping elect Republicans in November, they are helping Donald Trump pour more money into his already healthy bank account.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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