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Tag: trump scams
'Save America' PAC Doled Out $60,000 To Melania Trump's Stylist
August 07, 2022
The Save America political action committee, a fund created by former President Trump to push his debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, paid $60,000 to a fashion designer known for styling former First Lady Melania Trump, according USA Today.
The payments, which the committee said were for “strategy consulting,” were doled out to Hervé Pierre Braillard in four installments, with $6,000 paid on April 7 and $18,000 on May 4, June 3, and June 24, USA Today’s Erin Manfield reported, citing Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings.
Braillard, a French-American designer based in New York, has styled other first ladies, including Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton. Braillard’s work with Melania Trump earned him feature coverage in Vogue and the New York Times while Trump was still in office.
“Mr. Pierre serves as a senior adviser to Save America, involved in event management and special projects,” Taylor Budowich, a senior official with Save America, told news media outlets, making no mention of what the payments were actually made for.
The payments, according to Manfield, “offer a window into one of the many ways Trump, who is not a candidate for any federal office, is allowed to use money in the [Save America] PAC.”
Save America, dubbed “the primary hub of [Trump’s] ongoing political operations” by the New York Times, has received and paid out millions of dollars accumulated from Trump’s political operations.
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection accused Save Americ of receiving most of the $250 million Trump fleeced from his supporters for an “Official Election Defense Fund” that its investigators testified never existed.
"Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election-related litigation," Amanda Wick, senior investigative counsel for the select committee, testified on the second day of the public hearings.
“The Federal Election Commission does not allow candidate committees, which are formed to raise money for a specific candidate, to spend money on personal items, including clothing. But Save America is not a candidate committee, it's a leadership PAC, originally designed for politicians to raise and give money to other candidates,” USA Today noted in its report. “They carry fewer restrictions and have been criticized as slush funds.”
Indeed, under law, politicians with leadership PACs have broad authority to spend the money they raise as they see fit.
In June, a non-partisan and non-profit group tracking money in U.S. politics, Open Secrets, found that the PAC had paid millions of dollars to Trump-aligned organizations. One of them is Event Strategies Inc., a Trump-affiliated firm that reportedly received millions from the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and other Trump PACs.
Save America gave out the maximum $5,000 donations permitted by law to Trump-endorsed election deniers contesting in Republican primaries across the country, yet “tens of millions of dollars in donor money is left over,” USA Today noted in its report.
Non-profit news source Bridge Michigan found last week found that eight of nine Trump-endorsed GOP candidates nominated in state legislative races had received donations exceeding “lawful contribution limits” from Save America. However, the candidates had yet to return the “excess contributions.”
Ann Ravel, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, expressed to USA Today her concerns about the evolution of PACs and the need for their regulation.
"For so long the whole point of leadership PACs, even when they were set up, was to kind of ingratiate yourself and help your other Congress-people or other political candidates, but that's apparently pretty much gone by the wayside," Ravel said. "It's in desperate need of regulation."
Trump Begs Gullible Donors For Money To 'Sue' CNN Over The Big Lie
August 07, 2022
Barely two months after the House Select Committee took Donald Trump to task for conning his supporters out of $250 million for non-existent election-related litigation, the former president is at it again, begging followers to fund a meritless lawsuit against CNN that has yet to materialize.
On Friday, Trump pelted his supporters with emails pleading for donations to fund his “impending lawsuit” against the cable network for calling him a “liar” due to his persistent promotion of debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, according to The Daily Beast.
“I’m calling on my best and most dedicated supporters to add their names to stand with me in my impending lawsuit against fake news CNN,” wrote Trump in the email, captioned “Let’s SUE CNN”.
“Add your name immediately to show your support for my upcoming lawsuit against fake news CNN.”
The email concluded with a link that directs visitors to the ex-president’s donation portal, mirroring previous fundraising emails.
In a second email sent hours after the first, Trump wrote: “I’m going to look over the names of the first 45 Patriots who added their names to publicly stand with their President AGAINST CNN.”
The fundraising emails come after attorneys for Trump, who is still obsessing over his loss in the 2020 election, issued a 282-page document to CNN demanding the retraction of such terms as “the big lie” and “lying” from its coverage of his voter fraud election claims.
“Failure to publish such a correction, apology, or retraction will result in the filing of a lawsuit and damages being sought against you, CNN,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the letter.
In a statement July 27, Trump expressed his intent to go after “other media outlets” that called him out for spreading bogus election fraud conspiracies. "I will also be commencing actions against other media outlets who have defamed me and defrauded the public regarding the overwhelming evidence of fraud throughout the 2020 Election," Trump wrote. "I will never stop fighting for the truth and for the future of our Country!"
\u201cStatement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America\u201d— RSBN \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@RSBN \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1658948781
Multiple investigations at varying levels of government across dozens of states -- as well as a probe by former Attorney General William Barr -- yielded no plausible evidence of widespread election fraud in the 2020 elections, yet Trump’s attorneys defended their client’s insistence on the Big Lie.
“... President Trump’s comments [regarding the 2020 election] are not lies: He subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states,” wrote the former president’s legal team.
Perhaps encouraged by the recent strings of election deniers’ victories in recent Republican primaries, a Florida lawyer for Trump, Lindsey Halligan, also threatened July 29 on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to sue CNN for describing Trump as “a liar.”
“CNN branded Trump as a liar, and referred to his questions regarding voter fraud as ‘the big lie,’ which is actually linked to Adolf Hitler,” Halligan told Bannon.
However, prominent commentators have ridiculed Trump’s threat to sue CNN for dafamation. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman opined, "You don't need to have passed the bar exam to know that no one at CNN will lose sleep over his demand that the network "publish a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction" of dozens of statements accusing him of a cynical campaign of deceit. Trump is more likely to win the Olympic decathlon than to prevail in this dispute."
#EndorseThis: Rufus Wainwright Sings 'Bye Bye Bloatus'
January 22, 2021
Singer, songwriter, and composer Rufus Wainwright went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to celebrate the end of Trump's tumultuous presidency. Having written everything from alternative rock to classical operas, Wainwright now blesses us with Bye Bye Bloatus. It's not his first Trump composition, but this one really brings the joy now that Trump is gone.
So enjoy a "41 pun salute." It's guaranteed to make you laugh.
The Nicknames of Donald Trump Performed By Rufus Wainwrightwww.youtube.com
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The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
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