WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting on top of more than $115 million across several political committees, Donald Trump has positioned himself as a uniquely indomitable force in the GOP who would almost certainly have the resources to swamp his rivals if he launched another presidential campaign.
But that massive pile of money is also emerging as a potential vulnerability. His chief fundraising vehicle, Save America PAC, is under new legal scrutiny after the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee's fundraising practices.
The scope of the probe is unclear. Grand jury subpoenas and search warrants issued by the Justice Department in recent days were related to numerous topics, including Trump's PAC, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The subpoenas seek records as well as testimony and ask at least some of the recipients about their knowledge of efforts to engage in election fraud, according to one of the people.
The subpoenas also ask for records of communication with Trump-allied lawyers who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and plotted to line up fake electors in battleground states. A particular area of focus appears to be on the “Save America Rally” that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the person said.
The investigation is one of several criminal probes Trump currently faces, including scrutiny of how documents with classified markings wound up at the former president's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Regardless of Save America's ultimate role in the investigations, the flurry of developments has drawn attention to the PAC's management, how it has raised money and where those funds have been directed.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the subpoenas, saying a “weaponized and politicized Justice Department” was “casting a blind net to intimidate and silence Republicans who are fighting for his America First agenda.” Representatives for the Justice Department have declined to comment.
While Trump has more than $115 million held across various committees, the vast majority of it is stored at Save America. The PAC ended July with more than $99 million cash-on-hand, according to fundraising records — more than the Republican and Democratic national campaign committees combined.
Trump has continued to shovel up small-dollar donations in the months since, frustrating other Republicans who have been struggling to raise money ahead of the November midterm elections.
Save America is set up as a “leadership PAC” designed to allow political figures to fundraise for other campaigns. But the groups are often used by would-be candidates to fund political travel, polling and staff as they “test the waters" ahead of potential presidential runs. The accounts can also be used to contribute money to other candidates and party organizations, helping would-be candidates build political capital.
Much of the money Trump has amassed was raised in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. That’s when Trump supporters were bombarded with a nonstop stream of emails and texts, many containing all-caps lettering and blatant lies about a stolen 2020 election, soliciting cash for an “election defense fund.”
But no such fund ever existed. Instead, Trump has dedicated the money to other uses. He's financed dozens of rallies, paid staff and used the money to travel as he's teased an expected 2024 presidential run.
Other expenses have been more unusual. There was the $1 million donated last year to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit that employs Cleta Mitchell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom encouraged Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There was the $650,000 “charitable contribution” in July to the Smithsonian Institution to help fund portraits of Trump and the former first lady that will one day hang in the National Portrait Gallery, according to the Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas.
Much of the money has also funded a different sort of defense fund — one that has paid the legal expenses of Trump confidants and aides who have been called to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
Overall, Trump’s sprawling political operation has spent at least $8 million on “legal consulting” and “legal expenses” to at least 40 law firms since the insurrection, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures.
It’s unclear how much of that money went to legal fees for staffers after a congressional committee started investigating the origins of the attack. But at least $1.1 million has been paid to Elections LLC, a firm started by former Trump White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino, according to campaign finance and business records. An additional $1 million was paid to a legal trust housed at the same address as Passantino’s firm. Passantino did not respond to a request for comment Monday night. Payments have also been made to firms that specialize in environmental regulation and real estate matters.
As of July, only about $750,000 had been doled out to candidates for Congress, with an additional $150,000 given to candidates for state office, records show. Trump is expected to ramp up his political spending now that the general election season has entered full swing, though it remains unclear how much the notoriously thrifty former president will ultimately agree to spend.
Trump has long played coy about his 2024 plans, saying a formal announcement would trigger campaign finance rules that would, in part, force him to create a new campaign committee that would be bound by strict fundraising limits.
In the meantime, Trump aides have been discussing the prospect of creating a new super PAC or repurposing one that already exists as gets he closer to an expected announcement. While Trump could not use Save America to fund campaign activity after launching a run, aides have discussed the possibility of moving at least some of that money into a super PAC, according to people familiar with the talks.
Campaign finance experts are mixed on the legality of such a move. Some, like Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in campaign finance, said he didn't see a problem.
“There may be some hoops he has to jump through,” he said. But “I don't see a problem with it going from one PAC to another ... I don’t see what would block it.”
Others disagree.
“It is illegal for a candidate to transfer a significant amount of money from a leadership PAC to a super PAC. You certainly can’t do $100 million,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based good governance group focused on money and politics.
And whether or not Trump would face any consequences is a different matter.
For years, the FEC, which polices campaign finance laws, has been gridlocked. The commission is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and a majority vote is needed to take any enforcement action against a candidate.
Indeed, legal experts say Trump has repeatedly flouted campaign finance law since launching his 2016 White House run, with no consequence.
More than 50 separate complaints alleging Trump broke campaign finance laws have been filed against him since his 2016 campaign. In roughly half of those instances, FEC lawyers have concluded that there was reason to believe that he may have broken the law. But the commission, which now includes three Trump-appointed Republicans, has repeatedly deadlocked.
The list of dismissed complaints against Trump is extensive. In 2021, Republicans on the commission rejected the claim, supported by the FEC’s staff attorneys, that a Trump orchestrated hush-money payment by his former lawyer to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels amounted to an unreported in-kind contribution. In May, the commission similarly deadlocked over whether his campaign broke the law by hiding how it was spending cash during the 2020 campaign.
And over the summer, the commission rejected complaints stemming from Trump’s threat to withhold $391 million in aid for the Ukraine unless the Ukrainian officials opened an investigation into the relationship President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had with a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma, which the FEC’s attorney’s determined was a potential violation of campaign finance law.
“There is no legal basis whatsoever for believing that Congress intended the FEC to police official acts of the government that may be intended to assist an officeholder’s reelection,” the commission’s three Republicans said in a written statement late last month.
That means any enforcement action would likely have to come from the Justice Department.
“He has nothing to fear from the Federal Election Commission until either its structure is changed or there is turnover among the FEC Commissioners,” said Brett G. Kappel, a longtime campaign finance attorney who works at the Washington-based firm Harmon Curran and has represented both Republicans and Democrats. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to fear from the Justice Department, which is already apparently investigating Save America. From what I can see, there are multiple wire fraud allegations that could be the subject of a Justice Department investigation."
In the meantime, Trump and Save America continue to rake in contributions from grassroots supporters, blasting out fundraising solicitations with aggressive demands like “this needs to be taken care of NOW” and threatening donors that their “Voter Verification” canvass surveys are “OUT OF DATE," even as some of the Republican Senate contenders Trump endorsed and helped drag across the finish line in primaries are struggling to raise cash.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged those candidates to ask Trump for money, which the former president has so far proven reluctant to provide. That has left the candidates, some of whom presented themselves as McConnell antagonists during their primaries, to grovel to McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC he controls and has $100 million in reserve.
It also strengthens McConnell’s hand in his long-simmering feud with Trump, who has urged GOP senators to oust the Kentucky Republican. Some close to Trump acknowledge the candidates could use the money, but said he doesn’t see it as his responsibility to fill the void.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,850
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
Imagine, Obama. Bush, Clinton, Carter on AF1 with Biden to attend .....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
so delusional.
He is a charmer so who knows? When they showed pics of him walking w the Queen he was doing what he was supposed to and you saw her smiling.
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
so delusional.
He is a charmer so who knows? When they showed pics of him walking w the Queen he was doing what he was supposed to and you saw her smiling.
Well he may have charmed the queen, but evidently not the current king and that's what matters. There's was zero chance Trump was getting invited. The only chance was if every other ex president was also invited.
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
so delusional.
He is a charmer so who knows? When they showed pics of him walking w the Queen he was doing what he was supposed to and you saw her smiling.
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
so delusional.
He is a charmer so who knows? When they showed pics of him walking w the Queen he was doing what he was supposed to and you saw her smiling.
Biden just handed 2024 to trump by being the only president invited to the funeral SMH.
DEMOCRATS ARE SO STUPID
dEmZ iN dIsArRaY
FoxNews.com headline:
"Joe and Jill Biden to hobnob with known communists in government boondoggle to Europe."
Slow Joe walks into these traps every day.
I legitimately don't know whether you were having fun with this headline or if it's real. My guess is the former, but I wouldn't lay down any money either way.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Biden just handed 2024 to trump by being the only president invited to the funeral SMH.
DEMOCRATS ARE SO STUPID
dEmZ iN dIsArRaY
FoxNews.com headline:
"Joe and Jill Biden to hobnob with known communists in government boondoggle to Europe."
Slow Joe walks into these traps every day.
I legitimately don't know whether you were having fun with this headline or if it's real. My guess is the former, but I wouldn't lay down any money either way.
Yes, made up. But the headlines they write at that site are hilarious.
Biden just handed 2024 to trump by being the only president invited to the funeral SMH.
DEMOCRATS ARE SO STUPID
dEmZ iN dIsArRaY
FoxNews.com headline:
"Joe and Jill Biden to hobnob with known communists in government boondoggle to Europe."
Slow Joe walks into these traps every day.
I legitimately don't know whether you were having fun with this headline or if it's real. My guess is the former, but I wouldn't lay down any money either way.
Yes, made up. But the headlines they write at that site are hilarious.
I never go there, but did because I wasnt sure either. Man, some terrible headlines fore sure.
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
so delusional.
this mfer really, really thought he was going to get invited to the funeral? lmao.
i guess the royal family did not want to be regaled with tales of his huge and stunning electoral college victory and how he has been treated more poorly than anybody who has ever lived.
in short, they probably felt like he was going to make the funeral all about himself, like he has done with everything else his entire life.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
For Donald Trump, Information Has Always Been Power
People have wondered why the
former president collected classified intel, speculating that he is just
a packrat. But he has a long history of gathering and wielding
sensitive info to help himself.
by Andrea Bernstein
Sept. 14, 5:30 a.m. EDT
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Ever since the FBI came out
of Mar-a-Lago last month with box after box of documents, some of them
highly sensitive and classified, questions have wafted over the criminal
investigation: Why did former President Donald Trump sneak off with the
stash to begin with? Why did he keep it when he was asked to return it?
And what, if anything, did he plan to do with them?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Judge unseals additional portions of Mar-a-Lago affidavit
By ERIC TUCKER
Yesterday
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago.
A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room.
“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote.
The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
The Justice Department has been investigating the holding of top-secret information and other classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. FBI agents during their Aug. 8 search of the home and club said they recovered more than 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including roughly 100 with classification markings.
Separately Tuesday, the Justice Department again urged U.S. District Aileen Cannon to lift her hold on core aspects of the investigation. Cannon last week granted the Trump team's request for an independent arbiter to review the seized documents and weed out from the investigation any records that may be covered by claims of executive or attorney-client privilege.
She also ordered the department to halt its review of the records pending any further court order or the completion of a review by the yet-to-be-named special master. The department urged Cannon last week to put her order on hold and told the judge Tuesday that its investigation would be harmed by a continued delay of its ability to scrutinize the classified documents.
“The government and the public unquestionably have an interest in the timely enforcement of criminal laws, particularly those involving the protection of highly sensitive information, and especially where, as here, there may have been efforts to obstruct its investigation,” the lawyers wrote.
The Trump team on Monday urged the judge to leave her order in place. His lawyers raised questions about the documents' current classification status and noted that a president has absolute authority to declassify information, though they pointedly did not say that Trump had actually declassified anything.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
This is just a fishing expedition and a witch hunt splitting hairs about (confidential government) document storage and tfg's efforts to obstruct the investigation into where and how those (confidential government) documents were stored.
Who cares if he wasn't supposed to keep them, and lied about having them, and showed them to god knows who and knowingly obstructed the investigation?
He probably just wanted them for reading, or forgot he had them, or declassified them, or the FBI planted them, or he's just a pack rat.
Comments
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
www.headstonesband.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting on top of more than $115 million across several political committees, Donald Trump has positioned himself as a uniquely indomitable force in the GOP who would almost certainly have the resources to swamp his rivals if he launched another presidential campaign.
But that massive pile of money is also emerging as a potential vulnerability. His chief fundraising vehicle, Save America PAC, is under new legal scrutiny after the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee's fundraising practices.
The scope of the probe is unclear. Grand jury subpoenas and search warrants issued by the Justice Department in recent days were related to numerous topics, including Trump's PAC, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The subpoenas seek records as well as testimony and ask at least some of the recipients about their knowledge of efforts to engage in election fraud, according to one of the people.
The subpoenas also ask for records of communication with Trump-allied lawyers who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and plotted to line up fake electors in battleground states. A particular area of focus appears to be on the “Save America Rally” that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the person said.
DONALD TRUMP
Not Mar-a-Lago: Congress' secrets in sealed rooms, lock bags
What's left as Jan. 6 panel sprints to year-end finish
Midterm primaries wrap up with fresh test of GOP's future
Democrats try to seize political offensive ahead of midterms
The investigation is one of several criminal probes Trump currently faces, including scrutiny of how documents with classified markings wound up at the former president's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Regardless of Save America's ultimate role in the investigations, the flurry of developments has drawn attention to the PAC's management, how it has raised money and where those funds have been directed.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the subpoenas, saying a “weaponized and politicized Justice Department” was “casting a blind net to intimidate and silence Republicans who are fighting for his America First agenda.” Representatives for the Justice Department have declined to comment.
While Trump has more than $115 million held across various committees, the vast majority of it is stored at Save America. The PAC ended July with more than $99 million cash-on-hand, according to fundraising records — more than the Republican and Democratic national campaign committees combined.
Trump has continued to shovel up small-dollar donations in the months since, frustrating other Republicans who have been struggling to raise money ahead of the November midterm elections.
Save America is set up as a “leadership PAC” designed to allow political figures to fundraise for other campaigns. But the groups are often used by would-be candidates to fund political travel, polling and staff as they “test the waters" ahead of potential presidential runs. The accounts can also be used to contribute money to other candidates and party organizations, helping would-be candidates build political capital.
Much of the money Trump has amassed was raised in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. That’s when Trump supporters were bombarded with a nonstop stream of emails and texts, many containing all-caps lettering and blatant lies about a stolen 2020 election, soliciting cash for an “election defense fund.”
But no such fund ever existed. Instead, Trump has dedicated the money to other uses. He's financed dozens of rallies, paid staff and used the money to travel as he's teased an expected 2024 presidential run.
Other expenses have been more unusual. There was the $1 million donated last year to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit that employs Cleta Mitchell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom encouraged Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There was the $650,000 “charitable contribution” in July to the Smithsonian Institution to help fund portraits of Trump and the former first lady that will one day hang in the National Portrait Gallery, according to the Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas.
Much of the money has also funded a different sort of defense fund — one that has paid the legal expenses of Trump confidants and aides who have been called to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
Overall, Trump’s sprawling political operation has spent at least $8 million on “legal consulting” and “legal expenses” to at least 40 law firms since the insurrection, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures.
It’s unclear how much of that money went to legal fees for staffers after a congressional committee started investigating the origins of the attack. But at least $1.1 million has been paid to Elections LLC, a firm started by former Trump White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino, according to campaign finance and business records. An additional $1 million was paid to a legal trust housed at the same address as Passantino’s firm. Passantino did not respond to a request for comment Monday night. Payments have also been made to firms that specialize in environmental regulation and real estate matters.
As of July, only about $750,000 had been doled out to candidates for Congress, with an additional $150,000 given to candidates for state office, records show. Trump is expected to ramp up his political spending now that the general election season has entered full swing, though it remains unclear how much the notoriously thrifty former president will ultimately agree to spend.
Trump has long played coy about his 2024 plans, saying a formal announcement would trigger campaign finance rules that would, in part, force him to create a new campaign committee that would be bound by strict fundraising limits.
In the meantime, Trump aides have been discussing the prospect of creating a new super PAC or repurposing one that already exists as gets he closer to an expected announcement. While Trump could not use Save America to fund campaign activity after launching a run, aides have discussed the possibility of moving at least some of that money into a super PAC, according to people familiar with the talks.
Campaign finance experts are mixed on the legality of such a move. Some, like Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in campaign finance, said he didn't see a problem.
“There may be some hoops he has to jump through,” he said. But “I don't see a problem with it going from one PAC to another ... I don’t see what would block it.”
Others disagree.
“It is illegal for a candidate to transfer a significant amount of money from a leadership PAC to a super PAC. You certainly can’t do $100 million,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based good governance group focused on money and politics.
And whether or not Trump would face any consequences is a different matter.
For years, the FEC, which polices campaign finance laws, has been gridlocked. The commission is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and a majority vote is needed to take any enforcement action against a candidate.
Indeed, legal experts say Trump has repeatedly flouted campaign finance law since launching his 2016 White House run, with no consequence.
More than 50 separate complaints alleging Trump broke campaign finance laws have been filed against him since his 2016 campaign. In roughly half of those instances, FEC lawyers have concluded that there was reason to believe that he may have broken the law. But the commission, which now includes three Trump-appointed Republicans, has repeatedly deadlocked.
The list of dismissed complaints against Trump is extensive. In 2021, Republicans on the commission rejected the claim, supported by the FEC’s staff attorneys, that a Trump orchestrated hush-money payment by his former lawyer to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels amounted to an unreported in-kind contribution. In May, the commission similarly deadlocked over whether his campaign broke the law by hiding how it was spending cash during the 2020 campaign.
And over the summer, the commission rejected complaints stemming from Trump’s threat to withhold $391 million in aid for the Ukraine unless the Ukrainian officials opened an investigation into the relationship President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had with a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma, which the FEC’s attorney’s determined was a potential violation of campaign finance law.
“There is no legal basis whatsoever for believing that Congress intended the FEC to police official acts of the government that may be intended to assist an officeholder’s reelection,” the commission’s three Republicans said in a written statement late last month.
That means any enforcement action would likely have to come from the Justice Department.
“He has nothing to fear from the Federal Election Commission until either its structure is changed or there is turnover among the FEC Commissioners,” said Brett G. Kappel, a longtime campaign finance attorney who works at the Washington-based firm Harmon Curran and has represented both Republicans and Democrats. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to fear from the Justice Department, which is already apparently investigating Save America. From what I can see, there are multiple wire fraud allegations that could be the subject of a Justice Department investigation."
In the meantime, Trump and Save America continue to rake in contributions from grassroots supporters, blasting out fundraising solicitations with aggressive demands like “this needs to be taken care of NOW” and threatening donors that their “Voter Verification” canvass surveys are “OUT OF DATE," even as some of the Republican Senate contenders Trump endorsed and helped drag across the finish line in primaries are struggling to raise cash.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged those candidates to ask Trump for money, which the former president has so far proven reluctant to provide. That has left the candidates, some of whom presented themselves as McConnell antagonists during their primaries, to grovel to McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC he controls and has $100 million in reserve.
It also strengthens McConnell’s hand in his long-simmering feud with Trump, who has urged GOP senators to oust the Kentucky Republican. Some close to Trump acknowledge the candidates could use the money, but said he doesn’t see it as his responsibility to fill the void.
___
Colvin reported from New York.
___
Follow AP's coverage of Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Trump thought he had 'special connection to the queen' and was surprised he wasn't invited to funeral: Maggie Haberman - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism
"Trump and people around Trump believe he had some sort of special connection to the queen," she replied. "There's, for some reason, some expectation around people close to Trump that he should be getting an invitation. He fancied himself as having some kind of close relationship with her. A former aide to Trump told me, 'No, the queen really liked him.'"
Imagine, Obama. Bush, Clinton, Carter on AF1 with Biden to attend .....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
www.headstonesband.com
https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-invite-queens-funeral-was-bidens-only-2022-09-12/
www.headstonesband.com
"Joe and Jill Biden to hobnob with known communists in government boondoggle to Europe."
Slow Joe walks into these traps every day.
If Biden was serious about uniting the country he would invite Trump to the funereal.
Why doesn't Biden want to unite America?
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
i guess the royal family did not want to be regaled with tales of his huge and stunning electoral college victory and how he has been treated more poorly than anybody who has ever lived.
in short, they probably felt like he was going to make the funeral all about himself, like he has done with everything else his entire life.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
For Donald Trump, Information Has Always Been Power
People have wondered why the former president collected classified intel, speculating that he is just a packrat. But he has a long history of gathering and wielding sensitive info to help himself.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Ever since the FBI came out of Mar-a-Lago last month with box after box of documents, some of them highly sensitive and classified, questions have wafted over the criminal investigation: Why did former President Donald Trump sneak off with the stash to begin with? Why did he keep it when he was asked to return it? And what, if anything, did he plan to do with them?
continued
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago.
A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room.
“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote.
The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
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The Justice Department has been investigating the holding of top-secret information and other classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. FBI agents during their Aug. 8 search of the home and club said they recovered more than 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including roughly 100 with classification markings.
Separately Tuesday, the Justice Department again urged U.S. District Aileen Cannon to lift her hold on core aspects of the investigation. Cannon last week granted the Trump team's request for an independent arbiter to review the seized documents and weed out from the investigation any records that may be covered by claims of executive or attorney-client privilege.
She also ordered the department to halt its review of the records pending any further court order or the completion of a review by the yet-to-be-named special master. The department urged Cannon last week to put her order on hold and told the judge Tuesday that its investigation would be harmed by a continued delay of its ability to scrutinize the classified documents.
“The government and the public unquestionably have an interest in the timely enforcement of criminal laws, particularly those involving the protection of highly sensitive information, and especially where, as here, there may have been efforts to obstruct its investigation,” the lawyers wrote.
The Trump team on Monday urged the judge to leave her order in place. His lawyers raised questions about the documents' current classification status and noted that a president has absolute authority to declassify information, though they pointedly did not say that Trump had actually declassified anything.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
This is just a fishing expedition and a witch hunt splitting hairs about (confidential government) document storage and tfg's efforts to obstruct the investigation into where and how those (confidential government) documents were stored.
Who cares if he wasn't supposed to keep them, and lied about having them, and showed them to god knows who and knowingly obstructed the investigation?
He probably just wanted them for reading, or forgot he had them, or declassified them, or the FBI planted them, or he's just a pack rat.
Where and when does the DOJ's tyranny end?