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Chuck Grassley and Far Right Propagandists Covering Up How Trump Defrauded MAGAts
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In spite of the amusement we all had at Eric Schmitt’s considerable expense, yesterday’s Jack Smith hearing was a shitshow, not least because Democrats were grandstanding just as much as right wingers. As a result, when a very feeble Chuck Grassley played his tired trick of generating outrage over something easily explained, Democrats rarely used their time to give Smith a chance to explain the bullshit right wingers were pretending to be outraged over.There were three investigative prongs that have fairly obvious answers but which answers Democrats did not elicit from Smith:
- Why Smith obtained a bunch of information on Trump’s fundraising (including the PAC fundraising he used to pay legal fees for witnesses who did not incriminate Trump), including checks from large and small donors alike.
- Why Smith collected information on all the GOP entities that that fundraising flowed into, instead of paying for what Trump said he had raised it for, election integrity.
- Why it is normal — boring even!! — that Smith obtained communications with journalists from the devices he exploited.
Far right propagandists, including everyone from the Federalist, John Solomon, Murdoch properties, and Washington Times squealed and squealed and squealed, as if collecting journalists’ request for comment from newsmakers about topics they were in the process of making public were some grave assault on the First Amendment.
This is not just performative outrage, but it’s a confession on the part of the far right propagandists of how stupid they are.
It has been public for years that investigators obtained communications involving journalists (indeed, that happens in virtually every investigation of a newsworthy person, including both Jim Comey investigations Solomon has been gleeful over). In fact I showed, in detail, how useful they were in this case three years ago, when I laid out how Josh Dawsey’s queries about the corrupt fundraising Trump was doing between the election and January 6 elicited discussions within the Trump campaign (and, presumably, the White House) about covering up how corrupt that fundraising was.
The fundraising aspect of Trump’s Big Lie has been accessible to investigators, even beyond the fact that there’s boatloads of financial evidence available with a subpoena, because reporters, including Josh Dawsey, were able to track Trump’s fundraising in real time back in 2020, and when they saw what he was doing, they asked the Director of Communications for Trump’s campaign, Tim Murtaugh, about it.
Dawsey wrote a story on December 1, 2020, over a month before the Big Lie led to an insurrection, reporting on this scam.
President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $170 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election to shatter fundraising records set during the campaign, according to people with knowledge of the contributions.
The influx of political donations is one reason that Trump and some allies are inclined to continue a legal onslaught and public relations blitz focused on baseless claims of election fraud, even as their attempts have repeatedly failed in court and as key states continue to certify wins for President-elect Joe Biden.
Much of the money raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the president to use on political activities after he leaves office, while some of the contributions will go toward what is left of the legal fight.
[snip]
The donations are purportedly being solicited for the Official Election Defense Fund, whose name is featured prominently atop the Trump campaign’s website.
There is no such account, however. The fundraising requests are being made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising effort of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. As of Nov. 18, that committee also shares its funds with Save America, a new leadership PAC that Trump set up in early November and that he can use to fund his activities after the presidency.
The day after Dawsey wrote that story, a Trump supporter in Colfax, LA, donated $1,000 that they wanted used, “fighting for election [illegible]” (other of the hundreds of checks Grassley released yesterday even more specifically said they wanted their money spent on election integrity — though many were for the later period when the funds went directly to pay for friendly witnesses).
Back in 2020, Dawsey appears to have gotten no response from Murtaugh.
What happened with his inquiry instead — along with one Politico’s Maggie Severns sent on November 11 and a follow-up question CNN’s Jeremy Diamond sent on November 24, all among the 16 outlets listed by Grassley yesterday — is that Murtaugh, who could have no conceivable attorney client privilege, sent the query to Justin Clark, who otherwise would have attorney-client privilege, along with a bunch of other senior campaign officials, to ask whether they should “still ignore” press inquiries about the fundraising.
In the case of Dawsey’s email, they said things like this to each other:
On Nov 30, 2020, at 7:03 PM, Tim Murtaugh <tmurtaugh@donaldtrump.com> wrote:
I side with no comment. He’s going to write about the split and if we say stuff about legal expenses it will serve to highlight the argument that the fundraising pitch is misleading.
From: Jason Miller <jmiller@donaldtrump.com> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 7:24 PM
To: Tim Murtaugh <tmurtaugh@donaldtrump.com> Cc: Sean Dollman <sdollman@donaldtrump.com>; Justin Clark <jclark@donaldtrump.com>; Bill Stepien <BStepien@donaldtrump.com>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL]$$$$$$
Fair points. Sean -what are the reporting deadlines for these respective entities -12/15? It will be tougher to dodge such answers after reporters can find it themselves.
[snip]
Re: [EXTERNAL]$$$$$$
We should talk tomorrow about whether to just announce this by press release like we would any other fundraising announcement. If we have the numbers we can discuss how the breakdown among entities needs to be messaged. Also key, as Jason pointed out, that POTUS is on board with how it will be described. [my emphasis]
In response to Dawsey’s query back on November 30, 2020, Murtaugh, Clark, Jason Miller, CFO Sean Dollman, and Campaign Manager Bill Stepien exchanged emails recognizing that the fundraising pitch they were using was misleading, strategizing how they were going to continue to distract journalists from the misleading aspect of their pitches after they had to disclose their fundraising, and noting that they were going to ask Trump if he was comfortable with them fluffing journalists on how they were misleading small donors.
And sure enough, it was misleading. That $1,000 from a Louisiana Trump supporter didn’t go to election integrity. It lined the pockets of, among other things, Melania’s favorite dress designer.
For example, from July 2021 to the present, Save America has been paying approximately $9,700 per month to Dan Scavino,171 a political adviser who served in the Trump administration as White House Deputy Chief of Staff.172 Save America was also paying $20,000 per month to an entity called Hudson Digital LLC. Hudson Digital LLC was registered in Delaware twenty days after the attack on the Capitol, on January 26, 2021,173 and began receiving payments from Save America on the day it was registered.174 Hudson Digital LLC has received payments totaling over $420,000, all described as “Digital consulting.”175 No website or any other information or mention of Hudson Digital LLC could be found online.176 Though Hudson Digital LLC is registered as a Delaware company, the FEC ScheduleB listing traces back to an address belonging to Dan and Catherine Scavino.177
[snip]
Through October 2022, Save America has paid nearly $100,000 in “strategy consulting” payments to Herve Pierre Braillard,195 a fashion designer who has been dressing Melania Trump for years.196
[snip]
From January 2021 to June 2022, Save America has also reported over $2.1 million in “legal consulting.” Many firms perform different kinds of practice, but more than 67% of those funds went to law firms that are representing witnesses involved in the Select Committee’s investigation whowere subpoenaed or invited to testify.
That Louisiana voter was defrauded. And far right propagandists like John Solomon and Margot Cleveland are outraged that someone investigated — using communications asking for details about such things — attempts to defraud loyal MAGAts.
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