“This is a slush fund. That’s the bottom line.”
By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, November 12
Days after all the major networks called the 2020 election for Joe Biden, you might be wondering why Donald Trump still hasn’t conceded and is actively raising money for a legal defense fund— despite the fact that he has virtually no path to the presidency; his campaign has won no significant legal challenges; in some cases his lawyers haven’t even presented necessary evidence, sent the right documents, or filled out paperwork; and, in the words of one election law expert, “they’re just suing for the sake of suing.”
One reason, of course, is that asking him to admit he lost would be like asking him to roll out a yoga mat and get into scorpion pose; it’s physically impossible and it’s probably never, ever going to happen. (Though for America’s and comedy’s sake, we’d love to see him try!)
But another reason is less about his pathological inability to accept that he’s a loser, and more about the fact that he may see yet another way to line his pockets and those of his adult children.
As President Donald Trump’s chances of reelection dwindled last week, his campaign began blasting out a nonstop stream of emails and text messages that led to a website raising money for an “election defense fund” to contest the outcome.
Like many hallmarks of the Trump presidency, the messages contained all-caps lettering and blatant mistruths about voter fraud during the November 3 election. They also mislead supporters about where the money would go.
Trump has promised to contest President-elect Joe Biden’s win in court. But the fine print indicates much of the money donated to support that effort since Election Day has instead paid down campaign debt, replenished the Republican National Committee, and, more recently, helped get Save America, a new political action committee Trump founded, off the ground.
The unusual way the Trump campaign is divvying up the contributions has drawn scrutiny from election watchdogs, who say Trump and his family are poised to financially benefit from the arrangement.
While the Democratic National Committee and Biden’s campaign are also soliciting funds to defend the election results from Trump’s legal battles, the majority of it will go to the DNC’s legal account, with a portion sent to the party’s general fund where it could be used to pay for ads.
Whereas the lion‘s share of the money raised by the Trump’s campaign is expected to go to Save America, a PAC launched by Trump on Monday. And from there it could wind up in the personal accounts of the outgoing president, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and sure, maybe even Don Jr. and Eric if their father is feeling generous:
Save America is a type of campaign committee that is often referred to as a “leadership PAC,” which has higher contribution limits—$5,000 per year—and faces fewer restrictions on how the money is spent. Unlike candidate campaign accounts, leadership PACs can also be tapped to pay for personal expenses. A detailed breakdown of how contributions are split up shows that 60% of any donation now goes to Save America PAC.
The next 40% goes to an RNC account. It’s only once a donor reaches the maximum contribution limit for each group—$5,000 for Trump’s PAC and $35,000 for the RNC—that money will spill into legal accounts for Trump and the RNC, according to campaign finance attorneys who have reviewed the details of the arrangement.
Leadership PACs have long been abused. While they are intended to be used for raising money that can later be donated to other candidates, they can legally be used to pay for lavish—and questionable—expenses. “They could pay (Trump) children consulting fees.
They could pay the children’s significant others consulting fees. They could buy Don Jr.’s book, which the campaign can’t do,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “They could do anything with it. There’s no personal use restriction.”
“This is a slush fund. That’s the bottom line,” Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance attorney told the AP. “Trump may just continue to string out this meritless litigation in order to fleece his own supporters of their money and use it in the coming years to pad his own lifestyle while teasing a 2024 candidacy.”
Asked about how incoming donations will be split up, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh did not address the prospect of the Trump family grift, claiming the president “always planned to do this…so he can support candidates and issues he cares about, such as combating voter fraud.”
In a statement, a spokesman for the Biden campaign said, “Given the rate at which these lawsuits are being thrown out of court one after another, it’s fitting to learn that they were never engineered to succeed in the first place and are instead the dismal basis for a dog and pony show.”
