Where's the money go?
by digby
There's been a lot of discussion online about where all the Trump campaign money has gone. I don't know, but I understand that sometimes the reporting lags from one period to the other or there can be mis-classifications that confuse things. So, I'm making no assertions about what's going on with the expenditures. This is from the Washington Post:
Trump, meanwhile, had his biggest spending month yet, doubling the amounts he spent in May and June. But the $18.4 million his campaign shelled out in July was still a fraction of Clinton’s arsenal. Nearly half of the money, $8.4 million, went to one company: Giles-Parscale, a web-design firm whose president, Brad Parscale, serves as the Trump campaign’s digital director.
The San Antonio-based company, which got its foothold designing websites for the Trump Organization in 2011, has emerged as one of his campaign’s biggest vendors, taking in $12.5 million so far. In the last few months, Giles-Parscale’s portfolio has grown as it has spearheaded Trump’s belated but aggressive online fundraising effort.
Other large sums spent by the Trump campaign in July went to travel ($3.2 million) and merchandise ($1.8 million). The campaign doled out $773,000 to reimburse various Trump-owned companies for expenses. In all, nearly $7.7 million has been paid out to Trump companies or Trump family members to cover campaign expenditures, filings show.
While Trump’s payroll remained a fraction of Clinton’s last month, he continued to pay one former staffer: ousted campaign manager Corey Lewandowski received his regular $20,000 monthly fee on July 6 – two weeks after he was jettisoned and had been hired by CNN as a political commentator.
I'm still gobsmacked that the campaign is blatantly funneling money back into the family business and bank accounts. Even if it's legitimate reimbursements it just looks ... odd. Supposedly Trump has given over 50 million to his campaign without expecting it back so I guess that's peanuts by comparison. Still, Trump doesn't have to do this. He could pay for these things out of his own pocket but he isn't.
And then there's this:
The billionaire also trails his Democratic rival when it comes to raising money. July was his best month yet: the Trump campaign and two joint fundraising committees it has with the RNC together pulled in $82 million, officials announced earlier this month. That came close to the $90 million that Clinton raised in conjunction with the Democratic party in July.
However, Trump does not appear to be harvesting as much cash from those joint fundraising efforts as Clinton does. His campaign said that that it raised $64 million with the RNC through online donations and direct mail in July, ostensibly mostly small contributions that would be directed to his committee, rather than the party. But Trump’s campaign reported just $36 million in receipts last month. That included $14.5 million transferred from the joint fundraising committees and a $2 million donation from Trump himself, who has now given a total of $52 million to finance his White House bid.
It is unclear why more money was not transferred from the joint fundraising committees, which are not scheduled to file their next finance reports until Oct. 15. The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for clarification.
I will take a wild guess that it's because the 82 million dollar haul is horseshit. Nobody will care in mid-October avout money raised in July so they figure why not lie about what they took in? They lie about everything else.
I would just say again, I hope the vendors are all getting their money up front. That includes you, Conway.
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