The Trump Campaign Is Accused of Laundering $170 Million

[ancianita]

(I hope this hasn't been posted before. Maybe it was on LBN?)

A watchdog group is alleging that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has laundered $170 million through companies controlled by campaign officials as part of an effort to avoid disclosing which vendors it is really paying for services.

Under Federal Election Commission rules, campaigns are supposed to detail who they are paying. While some campaign vendors do hire sub-contractors or farm out work to other firms, a complaint to the FEC filed Tuesday by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center alleges that the Trump campaign is doing this on an industrial scale and is obscuring vast amounts of spending.

According to the complaint, then-campaign manager Brad Parscale and other campaign officials in 2018 created a company called American Made Media, which has since been paid more than $106 million, making it the campaign’s largest vendor. The campaign said that instead of hiring outside media buyers to purchase ads for the campaign, this new company would be used to directly purchase the ads and cut out the middle-man.

However, the Campaign Legal Center complaint points out that public records of television ad purchases appear to show that at least some of the campaign’s ad-buying has been conducted by a Virginia firm called Harris Sikes Media. The campaign has never reported to the FEC that it hired Harris Sikes. According to the Campaign Legal Center complaint, this suggests that American Made Media isn’t buying ads itself, just blocking the FEC from seeing who the campaign is hiring to buy ads.

More juiciness on Mother Jones
https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/07/trump-campaign-accused-of-laundering-170-million/

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin' with disgust!

[spanone]

2. Crooked as the day is long.

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. And?

Until that bastard is sent to jail in shackles, it's nothing more than more news that we already knew.

Yes, I am jaded. bush jr is a war criminal and will never spend one day in jail for it.

[Takket]

4. Cool. Throw it on the pile if crimes

Like the rest of the pile eventually it will be forgotten off the front page and essentially “gotten away with”.

[ancianita]

7. I hear you. But I think enforcement will get a shot of adrenaline with a new administration.

[HotTeaBag]

5. I can hear the yawn at the Justice Department from here in New Jersey.

No matter what this crime family does they will get away with it.

[ancianita]

6. Heh heh, yes. I hear it down here in Florida. The evidence will be collected, nevertheless,

and adjudicated later. It's not like the end of this administration is any statute of limitations.

[HotTeaBag]

8. Honestly, where the heck will prosecutors even start with this family?

So many crimes in a four-year span - it really is pretty incredible.

[ancianita]

10. If it's turned over to the FBI, they handle hundreds of investigations at a time.

They turn over evidence to SDNY, usually.

They've prosecuted and gotten rid of 300 mafia over here and 200+ in Italy in the same mafia network. In a two-year period. They can do it.

Now that the agency's mission is threat assessment, they've got lots of forensic teams and can follow money. It's part of their counterintelligence work. Too much white collar crime is a national security threat.

I'm pretty sure if we dodge the Trump/DOJ bullet, they'll take it from there.

[Blue Owl]

9. Put the man-toddler in a crib with iron bars and a padlock

n/t

[oasis]

11. Guilty 100%

[Cha]

12. Because on doubt they are.