A Profitable Lie

Back when Donald Trump was first running for President, he repeatedly said he would self-fund his campaign, as if that made him better than his competitors who were raising money. The media quickly exposed that lie (details here), revealing both that he was actually raising money at the same time he was claiming this and also how he profited richly from his own campaign -- his company billed his campaign with a huge markup for services rendered, leading to millions in profits for him.

Flash forward to the present day and the eye-opening Federal Election Commission filing that Trump's re-election campaign submitted over the weekend. Don't laugh -- Trump set-up a re-election campaign the day he was inaugurated, legally the earliest he could do so and more than two years in advance of any other candidate in history.

Trump has been raising money ever since Inauguration Day, and once again it's an exercise in self-dealing. One item in particular, however, is revealing: his campaign has paid more than a quarter million dollars in legal bills for Trump's son for his transgressions during the 2016 campaign (details here), which has nothing to do with any future re-election effort.

So people are sending their $10 or $15 or $20 donations to Trump's campaign, but they had no idea it was actually paying for his son's legal bills.

To further underline the twisted logic here, Trump's son is now allegedly running the President's private company and is supposedly firewalled from politics to avoid conflicts of interest. This, of course, is a complete scam -- how can he be walled off from his father's politics when his political campaign is paying sonny boy's bills?

Federal law allows wide latitude in what campaign funds can be used for, but there are limits. This expense could go beyond what is allowed, a legal matter that is yet to be determined.

Of course, this all once again highlights the scam that has been Trump's campaign all along -- he pretends to be fabulously wealthy but asks ordinary people to foot his personal bills for him. His son's legal bills aren't the only ones that the campaign has been covering -- they paid more than $1 million in legal bills for only three months of services this year (link here).

All this on top of the fact that many aspects of Trump's private business has reaped a huge profit since he became President. So he's making a ton of money at the public's expense, all the while expecting them to pay his personal bills.

Once again, his "drain the swamp" pledge is revealed to be a preposterous lie.