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Did Stan Woodward Get Paid Via the Proceeds of the Money Laundering that Todd Blanche Immunized?
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When right wingers performed Xitter outrage over the list of subpoenas — targeting the financial records of much of the MAGAt right — that Chuck Grassley released last October, I noted that what they were wailing about looked an awful like an investigation into money laundering.Those subpoenas asked for records that would show Trump raised money using false pretenses of supporting voting integrity between November 2020 and his insurrection. It tracked what happened to a Joint Fundraising Committee. It tracked what happened with payroll for some far right organizations run by people like Mark Meadows and Stephen Miller.
As I noted at the time, these subpoenas closely tracked allegations made in the January 6 Report.
The Trump Campaign spent the money on President Trump, giving donations to his associates, and keeping it for himself in Save America. Hundreds of millions of dollars that were raised to go towards “election defense” and “fighting voter fraud” were not spent that way at all. To the contrary, most of the funds remain unspent, and millions have been paid to companies that are known affiliates of President Trump, or payments to entities associated with former Trump administration officials. Since the election, former Trump officials who are still working for President Trump’s PACs, and are publicly receiving salaries as FEC-reported “payroll,” are also associated with these companies.
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 ThoughHudson Digital LLC is registered as a Delaware company, the FEC Schedule B listing traces back to an address belonging to Dan and Catherine Scavino.177
Nick Luna, President Trump’s former personal assistant and “body man,” was being paid from April 2021 to December 2021 approximately $12,000 per month by Save America for “payroll.”178 The Make America Great Again PAC (MAGA PAC)—formerly the authorized committee of President Trump’s reelection campaign, Donald J. Trump for President—paid $20,000 per month to a limited liability corporation called Red State Partners LLC from April 2021 through October 2021, and Save America paid Red State Partners LLC $20,000 in February 2022.179 The company was registered in Delaware on March 11, 2021 180 and has received a total of $170,000.181 Though it is registered in Delaware, disclosures filed with the Federal Election Committee (FEC) list Red State Partners at an address inMiami, Florida, that is an address for Nick Luna and his wife, Cassidy Dumbauld.182
Further, Vince Haley, Taylor Swindle, and Ross Worthington are corporate officers of a company known as Pericles LLC.183 Haley is a former policy advisor to President Trump,184 Swindle is the Chief Financial Officer for Gingrich 360,185 and Ross Worthington is the former White House speechwriter 186 who wrote the speech President Trump delivered on the Ellipse on January 6th.187 Pericles LLC was registered on January 27, 2021,188 the day after Scavino’s Hudson Digital LLC, and, since then, has received payments from Save America totaling at least $352,700.189
That’s one reason it was completely unsurprising to me when Capital Bank revealed on Friday that they had shut down Trump’s accounts because of money laundering concerns.
To the contrary, those documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons. The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance. Capital One never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure, and it permitted Plaintiffs several months (and granted several extensions) to find new banking services, which they did.
Whether or not Jack Smith investigated whether this was money laundering — or a campaign finance violation — all this sloshing of cash might look like money laundering to any bank required to look for such things. And when banks find such sloshing, they file Suspicious Activity Reports to the Feds and shut down the accounts in question.
We know Capital One shut down the accounts. That level of concern requires banks file SARs.
There are two subpoenas for Capital One among the ones Chuck Grassley revealed, though not for Trump. One, for records from September 2020 to the date of the subpoena, April 6, 2023, for Justin Clark. And one issued on November 16, 2022 — days before Jack Smith was appointed — also from September 2020 to the present, for the Conservative Partnership Institute, Mark Meadows’ gig. There were a slew of subpoenas to CPI, asking about how they awarded their grants, asking specifically about (among others) Stephen Miller.
That’s the stuff that (as the January 6 Committee noted) looked pretty suspect.
But there’s another use of Trump’s campaign funds that prosecutors investigated, which could be money laundering or could simply be suspected obstruction.
Those are subpoenas, including one dated March 23, 2023, that ask for materials related to the representation of everyone whose lawyers would have been vetted by Susie Wiles, who ran Trump’s Save America PAC.
The law firms mentioned include Woodward Brand — the law firm of Stan Woodward, who represented Kash Patel and others, and who in his current role as Associate Attorney General signed the IRS “settlement” — and Dhillon Law, the law firm of current Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, at which current White House Counsel David Warrington also worked.
To be clear: Those payments may be entirely kosher, except insofar as they suggest that people only got legal representation after Wiles made sure they would protect Donald Trump (which allegation shows up in the stolen document indictment). But we do know those payments were investigated, thanks to Chuck Grassley.
And now that Trump has forced Capital One to reveal that he looked like he was laundering money in 2021, in precisely the period he appeared to be laundering funds raised for election integrity to pay off those who were part of the coup, we deserve an answer before Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche sweeps Trump’s crimes under the rug again.
Were any of the people appointed to high positions in the current administration beneficiaries of the money laundering Blanche is attempting to immunize?
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