Of Course Trump Has Scammed Millions From His Not-Very-Bright Supporters

Authored by vanityfair.com and submitted by dingo8yobb

The Save America PAC “is probably the most lucrative thing he’s had in terms of cash flow since the Plaza casino in Atlantic City,” Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer, told the Post. “This is just as lucrative. He has recognized because of what happened after the election—he can make money as a candidate.”

Of course this isn’t the first time Trump has scammed supporters out of money. In April, New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher revealed that the Trump campaign had ripped off supporters for tens of millions of dollars through a scheme in which when they donated money, the default option authorized the campaign to transfer the pledged amount from people’s bank accounts not once but every single week. Later the campaign introduced a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution and was thus known internally as a “money bomb.” (In order for people to have noticed this, they would have had to wade through “lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.”) And the scheme continued after Trump lost the election, with his campaign reportedly “continu[ing] the weekly withdrawals through prechecked boxes all the way through December 14.” Those withdrawals, the Times noted, occurred “as [Trump] raised tens of millions of dollars for his new political action committee, Save America.”

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Alabama governor Kay Ivey tells constituents to get it through their thick heads that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe

“Folks are supposed to have common sense,” Ivey told a reporter on Thursday when asked what can be done to encourage more people to get the vaccine. “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.… I’ve done all I know how to do. I can encourage you to do something, but I can’t make you take care of yourself.”

This no-nonsense push for people to stop listening to conspiracy theorists and start getting vaccinated would be deeply refreshing were it not for the fact that Ivey lifted mask mandates as Joe Biden asked states to keep or reinstate them, banned businesses and institutions from requiring vaccination passports in May, and steadfastly supported the guy who lied about the virus to the public. On the same day that Ivey told the media, of the unvaccinated, “These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain,” she also signaled she would not mandate mask-wearing in classrooms when classes resume in Alabama’s public schools.

Leopold_Darkworth on July 23rd, 2021 at 21:54 UTC »

For a guy who claims to be a billionaire, he really seems to engage in the high-dollar-value equivalent of scrounging change from the couch cushions. If you're really a billionaire, why would you need to bilk supporters with a fake legal defense fund, run a scam charity, or send taxpayer dollars directly into your own pocket by charging the Secret Service retail price to protect you at properties you own? (Spoiler alert: it's because he's not actually all that wealthy.)

impulsekash on July 23rd, 2021 at 20:52 UTC »

You mean a guy who defrauded his own university, his own charity, and his own company is now defrauding his own campaign? Shocked I tell you, shocked.

Heinrich_Bukowski on July 23rd, 2021 at 20:51 UTC »

In April, New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher revealed that the Trump campaign had ripped off supporters for tens of millions of dollars through a scheme in which when they donated money, the default option authorized the campaign to transfer the pledged amount from people’s bank accounts not once but every single week. Later the campaign introduced a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution and was thus known internally as a “money bomb.” (In order for people to have noticed this, they would have had to wade through “lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.”) And the scheme continued after Trump lost the election, with his campaign reportedly “continu[ing] the weekly withdrawals through prechecked boxes all the way through December 14.” Those withdrawals, the Times noted, occurred “as [Trump] raised tens of millions of dollars for his new political action committee, Save America.”

This can’t possibly be legal