Trump Raked in $200 Million Since Election
The real crime is what's legal.
NYT (“Trump Has Reeled in More Than $200 Million Since Election Day“):
Since his victory in November, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s allies have raised well over $200 million for a constellation of groups that will fund his inauguration, his political operation and eventually his presidential library, according to four people involved in the fund-raising.
It is a staggering sum that underscores efforts by donors and corporate interests to curry favor with Mr. Trump ahead of a second presidential term after a number of business leaders denounced him following the violence by his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Trump has promised to gut the “deep state” and made various promises to industry supporters. Among the pledged donors for the inaugural events are Pfizer, OpenAI, Amazon and Meta, along with cryptocurrency firms.
The total haul for the committee financing his inaugural festivities — at least $150 million raised, with more expected — will eclipse the record-setting $107 million raised for his 2017 inauguration, according to three people briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share internal financial information.
Other committees benefiting from the fund-raising blitz include a super PAC called Make America Great Again Inc. and its associated nonprofit group, which is expected to be used by Mr. Trump’s team to back his agenda and candidates who support it, while opposing dissenters.
This would seem obviously to be a case of influence peddling if not outright graft. But it’s oddly not only legal but normal. It has been routine for as long as I’ve paid attention for Presidents-Elect to raise large sums for inaugural festivities.
An April 2021 Reuters report (“Pfizer, unions, others donated $61.8 million for Biden’s inaugural“) provides context:
U.S. President Joe Biden raised $61.8 million for his inauguration events, receiving large contributions from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals, according to a financial disclosure.
The Democratic president’s inaugural committee took in $1 million in contributions each from about 10 big companies, including Pfizer Inc, the maker of one of the COVID-19 vaccines being deployed in the United States, as well as from AT&T Services Inc, Bank of America Corp and Boeing Co.
Corporations making $1 million donations also included Uber Technologies Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp and Qualcomm Inc, according to the filing submitted on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission.
The committee also received $1 million from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a major labor union.
About a dozen individuals donated $500,000 each, according to the filing.
The filing did not give details on how the money was spent on the events accompanying Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, which nixed traditional inaugural balls due to the coronavirus pandemic but included televised performances by Lady Gaga and Garth Brooks.
The inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, including security, was paid for by the federal government.
The money raised by Biden’s committee was well below the $106 million raised by Donald Trump for his 2017 inauguration, but exceeded the $53 million raised by Barack Obama for his first inauguration in 2009.
So, offhand, it would appear that the main difference here is one of scale: Trump raked in way more money than Biden or Obama.
Then again, these monies are ostensibly for an eventual Trump presidential library in addition to the inauguration. And others have raised boatloads of money for their libraries. Indeed, Obama apparently raised $311 million in 2022 alone and well over $1 billion so far.
The Obama Foundation raised record sums in 2022 for its programming and ongoing construction of the presidential center in Jackson Park.
The foundation received $311.4 million in contributions and grants last year, according to the foundation’s 2022 IRS filing and annual report. This is the largest sum the foundation has made since its founding in 2014, per Obama Foundation spokesperson Courtney Williams. It’s almost double the previous year’s fundraising of $160.21 million.
The jump comes in large part from two new mega donors — tech CEOs Brian Chesky of Airbnb and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon — who each gave $100 million towards programming. (Chesky also gave a separate $25 million in unrestricted funds.) In all, more than 57,000 donors contributed last year.
Since fundraising for the Obama Presidential Center began in 2017, the foundation has raised a total of $1.1 billion, according to reports. In summer 2021, just before construction on the center broke ground in Jackson Park, the foundation set a total goal of raising $1.6 billion by 2026 to finance construction and an endowment to sustain it. The center is set to be completed in 2025.
That said, a crucial difference is that Obama waited until he was out of office to solicit that money—but not to start raising it.
After turning over the White House this month to a successor who aims to scuttle some of his key initiatives, President Barack Obama and his foundation will embark on an epic endeavor — racing for mega-donors who can rocket-launch their fund drive for a presidential library and museum on Chicago’s South Side.
The scale is daunting: While Obama’s library planners decline to provide a cost estimate, the George W. Bush library and endowment broke records at more than $500 million, the latest example of skyrocketing costs. Adding to the pressure, the Obama project is the first to be built under sharply increased federal requirements for a sustaining endowment. Obama chose to add another hurdle by pledging not to personally raise money for the project during his term in office.
[…]
Typically, fundraisers for presidential libraries find their lead donors from among the biggest supporters to election campaigns and inaugurals. In Obama’s case, the pool is deep. He lifted the bar for presidential campaigns, raising nearly $750 million in 2008 and $722 million in 2012.
“There are a lot of rich, liberal donors who … will open up their checkbooks,” said presidential library expert Benjamin Hufbauer, an associate professor at the University of Louisville.
[…]
White House press secretary Josh Earnest in May rejected any suggestion that a donation to the foundation could guarantee access.
“The president has made a commitment that he will not be raising money for the foundation while he’s still in office,” Earnest said at a news conference. “What we have said about donors to the (election) campaign also applies to donors at the foundation, and it’s simply this: Donating in support of the president’s foundation does not guarantee you a meeting with the president of the United States. It also doesn’t prevent you from getting a meeting with the president of the United States.”
He was responding to findings this year by MapLight, a not-for-profit that tracks political contributions, that 15 of 39 named donors to the Obama Foundation visited the White House for small meetings or events with the president, including all donors whose family or foundation had donated more than $100,000.
The Obama Foundation has taken a number of steps aimed at avoiding the sorts of roiling controversies that have singed the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising efforts.
While Obama remains in office, the foundation agreed not to accept contributions from for-profit entities, federal lobbyists, or foreign nationals or agents.
“We are limiting our fundraising now to a group of longtime supporters of the president and limiting the amount that they can contribute,” Martin Nesbitt, chairman of the Obama Foundation, told reporters last summer. “But when the term is over, we will modify that in a way that facilitates us getting to our fundraising goals.”
The whole process is, to say the least, problematic. It seems obvious that sitting politicians shouldn’t be allowed to take massive contributions from donors, whether they be wealthy individuals, corporations, or other entities. Surely, the Treasury could pay for inaugural events and presidential libraries.
But, of course, when our whole system of campaign finance requires politicians to raise millions of dollars—indeed, as much as a billion for a presidential race—that cat is already out of the bag.
It’s protection money. Trump is promising massive economically destructive tariffs in his second term. But, as in his first term, he can give dispensation to certain actors Give him a few million and you’ll get an exception worth billions. He’s promising to weaponize the DOJ. Give him a few million and your’e spared tens of millions in legal fees. He also might get them to not to enforce laws and regulations against your company.
This is the biggest shakedown in American history. And a little bit of blame goes to the D’s who could have reigned in Presidential power during Biden’s first two years but chose not to.
trump presidential library
If there is ever a constitutional convention, one amendment that would garner wide support would be to limit money in politics.
More gift and graft to come.
The old joke about “the best government money can buy,” ain’t no joke.
When I dropped my WAPO subscription, not effective for months yet, I said I’d only miss two things, Alexandra Petri of the famous, ‘It’s left to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris’ column and cartoonist Ann Telnaes. NYT reports this morning that Telnaes just quit. She quit over the Quisling Post refusing to run her cartoon on this very subject of donations to Trump. The cartoon is included in the gift linked article. She showed Bezos amongst a group offering tribute to Trump. I wonder how long Petri will hold out.
@Sleeping Dog:
Not among the people who would buy the Constitutional convention.
And it doesn’t require an amendment, just a non-Republican Supreme Court.
@gVOR10: Petri is 28 years younger than 1960-born Telnaes. She may be having a “who else is going to pay me this kind of money” crisis of economics as well as one of conscience.
In the old middle class, economics usually would win. In our new bifurcated economic structure, where the poor of the “middle class” are scraping by on a couple hundred thousand a year, conscience may be able to afford to prevail. Outside of my experience, though, so I dunno.
[…]
ETA: “Not among the people who would buy the Constitutional convention.”
That was my thought, too.
All of this raises the question of whether, in fact, presidents should be having extravagant multi-million dollar parties when they are elected or need massive presidential libraries and museums (which, let’s be fair, aren’t exactly honest assessments of history).
The inauguration itself should be more than sufficient of a celebration and modest archives at appropriate universities should be enough for presidential papers and the like.
I am not suggesting any legal action, just pontificating on the morality and needs of these things,
I can think of better uses for the hundreds of millions of dollars under discussion here.
@gVOR10: in this case, what is done can absolutely be undone. The cat can be put back in the bag, but only if integrity outweighs greed and . lord knows, we can’t have that.
Adding rhetorical before question is the only improvement I’d make to that sentence.
By closing with this statement, Dr. Joyner, it strikes me that you have buried your lede.
Our whole campaign financing system has been corrupt for some time. What’s unique about Trump’s application of the system is the brazenness. Whereas Obama and his predecessors felt it necessary to at least create a facade of propriety in their fundraising, Trump has shown that there is no downside to be obviously in the bag. Quid pro quo becomes status quo and there’s no reason to be coy about any of it.
We live completely and openly in an oligarchy now. There’s no point dancing around that fact. A plurality of the People didn’t care enough about their power such that they were willing to give it away for all of us.
We’re definitely in a new Gilded Age.
Long ago, I learned of the 19th Century Robber Barons. One of the most audacious was Jay Gould, a railroad magnate, and well-known known for bribery and insider trading. The story goes that he wanted to upend fellow Robber Baron Cornelius Vanderbilt’s plan to buy the Erie Railroad, so he went up to Albany with a suitcase filled with cash and he bribed state legislators to pass legislation to ‘eff with Vanderbilt and enable Gould to acquire the Erie Railroad. It worked.
Just a few months ago Elon Musk went down to Mar-a-Lago and figuratively emptied his cash-filled Cybertruck containing $270 million into the Trump Campaign. Meanwhile, Tech Barons like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Sam Altman have all pledged at least $1 million to Trump’s Inauguration.
It’s all in the open, no one is surprised. The Roberts’ Court ruled in Citizens United that money is (free) speech and therefore cannot be regulated. So, here we are.
That’s a lot of books.
With this much money on hand, the Obama library could be a significant public good, plus a very nice Presidential library.
Recently, Chicago managed to somehow spend $700K(!) to build a unit of affordable housing, a number that is completely insane. But even taking that number, the Obama “Presidential Library” could be 1,000 units of affordable and mixed income housing, transforming a neighborhood, along with a pretty decent museum of all things Obama (which really needs to have his birth certificate)
Or a real library or two with a well-funded after-school tutoring program, and a giant statue of Obama in front.
Bring back ostentatious philanthropy, with the name attached to everything and statues. There are few reasons that anyone should be emulating the Carnegies, but if limited to that… I’d still be wary but I have no obvious specific objections other than “this really should be done by the government to insure everyone has access, etc.”
I’m thinking about what I would want to see in an Obama Presidential Library, and I think his entire tenure could be summarized with the following:
Start with two doors, one with a reproduction of his Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth, the other with a Kenyan Birth Certificate.
Behind door number 1, we have an animatronic Joe Biden saying “this is a big fucking deal”, a predator drone, and a ghostly image of Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland. Maybe toss in a dead bin Laden. As you exit, an audio clip of Obama saying “Donald Trump will not be the next president, I have faith in the American voter”* is playing.
Behind door number 2, we have an open sewer with fun house mirrors distorting everything. Audio provided by FoxNews and Alex Jones. Maybe it can be an escape room, where you need to state some basic facts to leave. Any basic facts.
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*: I think this is pretty much a direct quote.