President Donald Trump appears to be making money off of his role — and a lot of it. According to new filings with the Federal Election Commission covering the second quarter of 2020, the Trump Victory Committee (which is a joint fundraising operation of the Trump campaign and the RNC) spent a staggering about $400,000 at Trump’s family business just in the second quarter of 2020. The hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent at Trump’s hotel chain, specifically; one single payment from early March clocks in at a staggering almost $20,000. There were many payments beyond that instance.
Across the entirety of the 2020 election cycle so far, the total amount of cash that’s gone from an arm of the Trump campaign to the president’s own business totals over $3 million. The brazen corruption and self-dealing inherent in this arrangement seem entirely unprecedented. What other president has supported their private businesses with their re-election effort?
As writer Anna Massoglia reports:
‘Trump Victory paid ~$400,000 to Trump Hotel in Q2 alone—steering over $3 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to Trump family, properties & businesses with his 2020 re-election campaign & Trump MAGA joint fundraising [committee]’
New @FEC filing: Trump Victory paid ~$400,000 to Trump Hotel in Q2 alone—steering over $3 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to Trump family, properties & businesses with his 2020 re-election campaign & Trump MAGA joint fundraising cmte—$17.4M+ counting 2016 pic.twitter.com/jS7rp4258K
— Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) July 16, 2020
Infamously, as has been well-documented, Trump himself did not financially disentangle himself from his businesses upon taking office. Instead, he kept his financial holdings in the business empire and put his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the enterprise. The money that’s gone from the Trump campaign to his hotel chain is not the only source of cash that’s emanated, fundamentally, from Trump’s political position — there have also been government expenses associated with Trump’s endless trips to golf courses around the country that are branded with his own name. Since Trump took office in 2017, the Secret Service was billed for a staggering at least $628,000 as of March, covering expenses incurred across Trump’s properties. That doesn’t even cover the millions that Trump’s endless golf trips have cost the government in other travel expenses.
The examples of the president’s financial conflicts of interest don’t end there. At one point, he even wanted to host the 2020 edition of the G7 summit of world leaders at one of his own properties. After pressure, he backed out and switched to Camp David — and then the Coronavirus ground a lot of in-person meeting plans to a halt.
