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Author | Topic: Where did Trump's Inaugural Funding Go? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Does anybody know the latest on the accounting irregularities for the funding donated for Trump's inaugural festivities, Jan 2017? About a year ago (c. Jan 2018), I heard it reported that Trump had raised twice as much as Obama did (about $100 million opposed to about $50 million) and yet there was far less to the Trump festivities in comparison with Obama's (eg, Obama's featured many big-name acts whereas Trump's featured little more than one no-name band). Most inaugural committees close their accounting books within six months with an account of where all money went to. When I heard the story, after a full year Trump's committee had not yet closed its books and there was still about 50 million dollars that hadn't been accounted for -- that's about half of the funds donated. A year later after that, does anybody know whether anything has changed?
Google'ing, I found that most reports dated from around Jan 2018, a year ago. There were a few more going into Summer 2018. Here is the most recent one that I found: "Why Trump’s inauguration money is a major part of Mueller’s Russia investigation: Russia-tied donations and oligarch connections have drawn Mueller’s interest.", by Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com, 05 Jul 2018 8:10am EDT, VOX, https://www.vox.com/...uguration-mueller-russians-rick-gates . It gets into a lot of the history of that inaugural with links, including sources of the donations and perks that that bought. Down at the end of the article, here is what it says about that missing $50 million (web links not copied over here, so go to that article in order to follow them):
quote: Does anybody know of any new developments on this?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
There is a long history of how Trump operates which sadly only the blue territory of New York and New Jersey know about. Not paying his bills is only one facet. Another facet is that he would create companies and then suck out of them all the personal cash that he could, driving them into bankruptcy, etc.
I first noticed that pattern playing out during the campaign itself. Trump's campaign headquarters was based on his own property, leasing those facilities from Trump (albeit through his company, but the profits still went into Trump's pockets). And the campaign fed its workers with Trump caterers, the profits from which went yet again into Trump's own pockets. And what did Trump do immediately upon winning? He registered for re-election. So he could continue to operate his (now re-)election campaign and keep that cash flowing into his pockets. That campaign headquarters was a big cash cow for Trump and a primary rule in business is to keep your cash cow well fed. Then on 06 Dec 2018, Forbes published this article, "How Donald Trump Shifted $1.1M Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business", by Dan Alexander -- https://www.forbes.com/...aign-donor-money-into-his-business. In addition to confirming my observations, he also examines questionable expenditures from the campaign funds, including campaign offices in Trump Plaza that nobody can find nor have ever heard of (ie, those offices appear to not even exist, so where's the money going?). I heard another story a few months ago which is verified by this article in The Guardian: ‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team -- Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short, reveals how Trump’s bungled presidential transition set the template for his time in the White House, 27 Sep 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/...mps-shambolic-transition-team. The story that I heard was that Trump threw an absolute fit when he learned that the transition fund was being used to pay for transition expenses. Trump thought that that money belonged to him personally and he was livid that they were "stealing his money". That confirmed to me that Trump viewed the money being raised was for the purpose of lining his own pockets. The timeline of the article covers events before the actual 2016 election, which would have been a time when Trump didn't anticipate actually winning and so was solely into the money. From the article, basically Chris Christie saw that the Trump transition team was in serious trouble so he volunteered:
quote: After describing the unwelcoming atmosphere towards Christie:
quote: Then Trump caught wind of this legally required and conscientiously executed activity and the shit hit the fan:
quote: The article continues describing the transition up to Trump firing Christie and the rest of the transition team:
quote:
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 763 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
Where did the money go??
Back to Russia?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Trump giving them a refund? Especially considering he has earned the money he's gotten from Russia. It's much more likely that that money has gone to Trump and his family and cronies.
Of course, there are the additional questions of where those donations came from, which could lead to possible money laundering. So if the money did come Russia as dirty money, then it could well be that some of it returned to Russia as laundered money. Don't forget that a lot of NRA donations to many politicians came from Russia. The main point of my questions is that that is a lot of money that was slushing about and large portions of it is still missing, not accounted for. Graft and corruption abound. Tracking down Trump and GOP finances should be given a high priority. This one is more a rumor, but right after the election I heard it reported that more than 200 million dollars were transferred from Russia into the first of a long convoluted chain of shell companies. Russian payment for Americans working for them having succeeded? If that is true, I would certainly hope that money is also being investigated. The principles for recruiting traitors is given through two interpretations of the acronym, MICE:
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Now today we have news that Trump's inaugural committee's finances are part of a criminal investigation: WSJ: Trump inaugural committee under investigation, CNN on YouTube.
The game is afoot!
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The Left's whole strategy is to "investigate" everything, insinuate everything, label everything criminal whether it is or not, and generally try to create an impression in the public mind to turn his supporters against him. That's the entire strategy. There doesn't have to be anything of substance in any of it, it's all innuendo but as Hitler knew so well, lies work, and the Left has no moral integrity, they are traitors.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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The Left's whole strategy is to "investigate" everything, insinuate everything, label everything criminal whether it is or not, and generally try to create an impression in the public mind to turn his supporters against him. This strategy seems to be working rather better than the right's strategy of ignoring criminality and corruption so long as the criminal has an R next to his name. But why are you whining about "the left"? This investigation is being conducted by the police, not the Democratic Party.
There doesn't have to be anything of substance in any of it, it's all innuendo but as Hitler knew so well, lies work, and the Left has no moral integrity, they are traitors. If you have any evidence that anyone at all on the left has committed treason then you should show it to someone. The police, the Justice Department, Fox News. If on the other hand you are just screaming out filthy stupid hysterical hateful lies without a shred of evidence ... then you might just be a conservative. Oh, and a "Christian" of course. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Taq Member Posts: 10084 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Faith writes: The Left's whole strategy is to "investigate" everything, insinuate everything, label everything criminal whether it is or not, and generally try to create an impression in the public mind to turn his supporters against him. That's the entire strategy. There doesn't have to be anything of substance in any of it, it's all innuendo but as Hitler knew so well, lies work, and the Left has no moral integrity, they are traitors. The Department of Justice is investigating possible criminality, not the Democrats or the Left. Also, were you born after Obama left office? Did you forget about the complete nonsense the Republicans were constantly investigating, like Benghazi? Did you forget about the Birther nonsense? Clinton emails? Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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riVeRraT Member (Idle past 444 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
He would buy companies and suck all the cash out of them driving them into bankruptcy? I thought Trump owned like 515 business, and only 6 went bankrupt. You are fake news. I think he even paid back most of his debts. Some of the corporations that went bankrupt were not even solely owned by Trump.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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He would buy companies and suck all the cash out of them driving them into bankruptcy? Really? That's all you got out of that? Nothing more? Like his funneling campaign contributions into his own pocket by housing everything in his own properties? Then immediately register for re-election in order to keep that campaign contribution scam running and keep the cash flowing in? You really didn't pick up on any of that? Really? And those "campaign expenses" includes offices in Trump properties that nobody can locate? Really? Or the way that Trump thought that the funding for the transition was supposed to be his own personal cash? Didn't raise any red flags for you? Really? Also, I noticed that you didn't even quote what I had written:
DWise1 writes: Another facet is that he would create companies and then suck out of them all the personal cash that he could, driving them into bankruptcy, etc. OK, I didn't mean to imply a causality there, but I guess I could see how you'd have thought what you did. At the same time, you have made a valid point. I mean, the very idea of Trump being able to plan out something like that gets more and more far-fetched the more you think about it. We already know all too well what a moron he is and that he has no ability to plan anything. All that he's good at is bullying and deceiving and lying, but his true talent is to deceive you into not realizing that he's lying because he acts as if he's telling you the truth (to be fair, he apparently cannot tell the difference between reality and his lies). So, he does suck cash out of businesses, that being one of his business models. He's a failed businessman, so indications are strong that he mismanages his businesses (I mean, how could a casino in Atlantic City to bankrupt like that except through mismanagement?). Is his sucking cash out of those businesses the cause of their going bankrupt? Or was it other aspects of his mismanagement? I admit that it's difficult to tell just how exactly he had managed to screw this one up. In the meantime, there's been another development that confirms another one of my suspicions. Did Trump's campaign get any kind of discount leasing Trump's own properties or using Trump's own services (eg, catering)? What about that $80 million we've spent for Trump to play golf at his own resorts? Any discounts there? I always betted that Trump charged at least full price on everything, no discounts not even for Trump himself, you know, the owner of the place. Now from the inaugural scandal, we have his daughter Ivanka over-charging the inaugural committee for the Trump venues that they used.
I think he even paid back most of his debts. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Hey riVeRraT! Could I interest you in a prime piece of NYC real estate? I happen to own the Brooklyn Bridge and I could sell it to you for just $100,000. Wat'cha say? Trump's basic business model is to not pay his bills. He does not pay back his debts. If he did, then American banks would have been willing to loan him lots of money based on your assessment of his credit rating, but instead he couldn't get a loan in this country because his credit rating was so abysmally low so he had to go to a sketchy German bank to borrow Russian money. Now, when stiffing debtors for his bankrupt businesses, the bankruptcy itself can be excuse enough for those debtors to have to accept pennies on the dollar. In the other cases, he would contract to have work done and then refuse to pay the contractor. The contractor is forced to sue Trump, so then Trump's lawyers use all kinds of legal tricks and delay tactics that promise to drive the contractor's legal costs up way beyond the amount they're trying to collect. In addition, many contractors operate on a knife's edge of financing anyway, so those mounting legal costs for trying to collect from Trump could easily drive them out of business themselves. So in the end, they end up having to settle for pennies on the dollar. Trump paid back most of his debts? Oh fuck no! That's nothing closer to how he operates. Why don't you have any clue what Trump's been doing? Have you been living under a rock for the past few years?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Follow-up news on the investigation into the inauguration committee confirmed a suspicion of mine regarding Trump's golf trips to his own golf resorts which were last reported to have cost us $80 million.
Needless to say, all the profit from those golf vacations go into Trump's own pocket. Of course he's not making any money off of the travel and salary expenses, but he is making money on what we're paying for meals, lodging, rentals at the resort (eg, golf carts), golf fees, etc. What I always wondered was what kind of a deal the resort has been given Trump and his entourage. It's a large group so a group discount should be in order. He owns the place, so he should be able to stay, eat, and play for free. Are we getting any kind of a discount or special rates? Now I think that we are indeed getting a "special rate", an inflated rate. The news from the inauguration investigation is that Ivanka handled the booking at Trump's hotel and charged the inauguration committee inflated rates. Now, I had always thought that Trump's resorts have been charging us the taxpayers full price for everything, including Trump's expenses. However, this news of overcharging sets a precedent which indicates that Trump's been charging the government higher than full price in order to increase the amount of money flowing into his pockets.
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