New reporting highlights Donald Trump’s corruption as he cozies up to billionaires like Elon Musk and makes promises to wealthy special interests in exchange for campaign checks.
“Donald Trump’s blatantly transactional fundraising goes to show his corruption knows no bounds as he seeks to enrich himself and his billionaires buddies,” said End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller. “After creating the most corrupt presidential administration in history, it’s clear a Trump sequel would be even worse than the original.”
The Guardian: Trump’s courting of big donors poses major corruption dangers, experts warn
Peter Stone
10/07/24
Key sections:
- As Donald Trump has ramped up fundraising from mega-donors for his 2024 presidential campaign and allied Super Pacs, he has increasingly pledged regulatory changes and other policies to boost their businesses, campaign-finance watchdogs have warned.
- Experts say Trump’s political pitches and maneuverings are a clearly “transactional” chase for big checks, and pose a serious danger of major corruption in a US political system already flooded with powerful donors and lobbyists.
- Trump’s transactional fundraising style has accelerated, and is underscored by his intense efforts to corral backing and big checks from Elon Musk – the billionaire who owns the social media platform X and is worth $263bn– plus fossil-fuel and crypto currency moguls, while dangling favorable federal policies and perks, say critics.
- To boost Trump’s electoral fortunes, the Musk-led America Pac had spent almost $60m by mid-September while fossil fuel donors who Trump has courted intensely have ponied up over $20m to other pro-Trump Super Pacs, his campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to OpenSecrets.
- “For Trump, political support, as well as access and influence, are all for sale to the wealthiest donors willing to finance Trump’s candidacy,” said Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center. “It is difficult to imagine a more apt description of corruption.”
- Trump’s wooing of Musk, who Trump has suggested could play a big role on a new federal advisory panel, and other super-rich donors have become more crucial to his chances in November as Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has overall outraised Trump’s.
- In August, for instance, the Harris campaign raised a whopping $190m versus the Trump campaign’s haul of $43m, and the Harris campaign is slated to spend more on ads than Trump’s in October.
- That disparity helps explain why Trump is now heavily focused on hauling in six- and seven-figure checks as he touts regulatory and other policies he would back if he wins in November: Trump’s current drive for big checks come even though in his 2016 campaign Trump called Super Pacs, which can take unlimited sums, a “scam” and a “disaster”.
- Critics say that Musk, who endorsed Trump in July, has turned X into a giant megaphone for Trumpist election misinformation, with posts making false claims about non-citizens voting in large numbers in key states.
- Meanwhile, Musk’s America Pac has emerged as a major Trump campaign ally by mounting get-out-the-vote operations in several pivotal states. According to OpenSecrets, America Pac had spent about $57m by 17 September to boost Trump’s electoral chances with ads and other get out the vote operations.
- But some state regulators have shown concerns about the Pac’s operations after receiving complaints of misleading information: in August, Michigan and North Carolina officials announced investigations of America Pac’s voter registration practices and website.
- The world’s richest man, Musk also personally hosted Trump on X on a streamed hour-long event in August giving Trump a valuable shot to reach his audience of about 195 million followers.
- Enhancing his Musk ties, Trump in September publicly embraced an idea Musk had first touted by announcing a plan to create a wide-ranging government efficiency commission aimed at making big spending cuts if he wins in November, which Musk could lead.
- Trump unveiled his new efficiency commission in a speech to the Economic Club of New York, a key business group, where he also touted slashing regulations and big cuts in federal spending. After Trump’s speech, Musk modestly wrote on X: “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”
- Trump earlier teased a key advisory role for the uber-billionaire during their streamed conversation in August. “I need an Elon Musk – I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states.”
- Trump’s drive to rope in checks and other support from Musk, a cryptocurrency backer, has overlapped Trump moves to garner financial backing from more cryptocurrency titans. Trump in July spoke at the annual Bitcoin conference where he promised to make America “the crypto capital of the planet and bitcoin superpower of the world”.
- The wealthy crypto leaders who have ponied up to help Trump include the billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who each have donated $250,000 to America Pac, and more than $700,000 together to the pro Trump Make America Great Again Pac.
- Election experts warn of other dangers in Trump’s moves to lure big checks from donors in tandem with promising various government help to benefit their bottom lines.
- “A somewhat unique hallmark of Donald Trump’s political brand is how closely it’s intertwined with his business identity,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.
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