REPORT: Donald J. Trump is cashing in on his legal jeopardy. And his misinformed mob of money-giving sheep is being herded for the fleecing. For cult & country.
As we begin, let’s remind ourselves that Donald J. Trump is knee-deep in defense attorneys. That’s because he is shit-deep in serious, significant & severe legal jeopardy for his alleged criminal behavior. Such as this terrible trio of pending cases:
Washington, D.C. - Criminal conspiracy to commit election interference.
Georgia - Racketeering conspiracy to tamper with Georgia’s election.
Florida - Illegal retention of national defense information.
To ‘lawyer up’ for his false defenses & delay strategies in criminal courts he needs a lot of money. To defend himself in the court of public opinion, he needs even more to successfully wage his dishonest political campaign to regain the presidency. If he is able to deceive enough voters and reoccupy the White House, he intends to have the cases against him dismissed.
Trump is getting the money to do that from both knowing and unknowing loyalists. He certainly isn’t using much or any of his own money. Instead, he is successfully fundraising off his legal troubles. Indeed, he is grifting off those travails.
Trump is collecting money from his rabid small donors (nay, marks) by offering those deluded supporters ephemeral rewards with no intrinsic value. He is also offering his angry mob dangerous promises of retribution for perceived false grievances, great and small, against imagined enemies. It’s a classic invitation to an exclusive inclusive cult. But, it’s all a lie, a con, a delusion, a fraud, a grift.
Like those who give to the cult leader generously & willingly, I receive the dishonest email appeals for money from Trump’s campaign and the super pacs supporting his candidacy. Some of the solicitations I receive, Trump says, have been written on “Trump Force One.” (Uh huh.) Here are some of the special rewards he is offering:
An official 2024 election year “Sustaining Membership.”
VIP visits to meet him and Melania at Mar-a-Lago (named for a former wife).
Participation in his “final priorities survey” (as if he gives a flying fuck what his supporters want in return for their blind loyalty).
An official Trump 2024 calendar featuring egotistical photos of himself which he says “he had a lot of fun putting together.”
Memberships in the “Battleground Victory Fund” & the “Primary Victory Fund.”
Oh boy, which reward should I choose? Which group should I join.? It’s too hard to decide. Maybe I should just become a member of them all? I don’t know what that would get me, but I guess I should just trust in the former president’s presidential trust. Then again, as my father used to warn: “Don’t buy a pig in a poke.”
By the way, if you hurry now, you can get your MAGA tree ornament delivered in time for Christmas. Because, after all, as Trump is heralding, he is responsible for Christians to be able to say “Merry Christmas” again. Yay Christians! They certainly aren’t those unwanted vermin (mostly African, Asian, Arabic & Hispanic) who are “poisoning our blood.” Yay white Christian nationalists!
Shopping for Christmas (Hannukkah, Kwanzaa & Festivus) gifts? “Hardworking patriots” (nay, cultists) can go to the Trump Store, where their “contribution will benefit Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.” There they can buy Trump 2024 flags, “Never Surrender” T-shirts, MAGA hats and insulting lib-tard what-nots. I don’t know the full inventory, as you have to commit your hard-earned money to ‘dear leader’ in order to access the site.
But, honestly, the most fantastical grift Trump has going right now is his special “Trump Digital Trading Card MugShot Edition.” Depending on how many you buy you can get hoodies, posters, pens, autographed cards and even a swatch of the blue suit Trump wore in the mugshot at his arrest. What a treasure trove of memorabilia of the greatest twice-impeached, criminally-indicted president in American history.
Who wouldn’t want to own “The Most Historically Significant Artifact in United States History?” Hold on to it because the blue suit swatch will certainly complement the orange swatch from the prison jump suit. (“Suitable for Framing!”). As any good con artist knows, worthless pieces of cardboard and cloth with no intrinsic value sell best when labeled “priceless.”
But, Trump isn’t the only grifter who sees “gold in dem der fools” and is profiting from the cynical lies he tells about his ‘wrongful persecution.’ Supporters (nay, customers) are being easily swindled by Trump opportunists. The sheep are being fleeced by shearers who are cashing in on the ‘Big Grift’ fostered by the ‘Big Lie.’
For instance:
As a Trump supporter, you can “avoid wealth confiscation” through the Birch Gold Group. They’ll even send you a free American Silver Eagle for every $5,000 invested in their IRA fund.
You can get Chuck Norris’ secret to more energy by going to his website url slash TRUMP.
You can text TRUMP to 70301 to get a limited edition Trump bobblehead. Or text BEAR to the same number for The Trumpinator Teddy Bear.
You can also get special deals on pillows and slippers from Mike Lindell’s My Pillow. (Of course.)
Or you can save yourself some time by subscribing to Right Side Broadcasting Network and wait for the endless exclusive promotions on their shows for sites where you can get a good Trump-inspired deal on something sketchy. Just gotta pledge some fealty as you part with your hard-earned cash.
“Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) is a pro-free speech network dedicated to bringing the TRUTH to the American people and the world.” - RSBN. (Uh huh.)
These willfully & woefully deceived & manipulated suckers are intentionally blind to Trump’s corrupt wrongdoings & criminality and primed to be taken advantage of by blatant swindlers. “A fool and his money …”
Meanwhile, putting all this aside, there is yet another perverse opportunity for Trump to cash in handily & fruitfully on his legal exposure. The man has an uncanny feel for when and how to exploit a bad situation.
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is set to rule on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. Also, the State Supreme court in Colorado has ruled that Trump indeed is an insurrectionist, and, as such, is ineligible from holding public office again. That state ruling is likely to also be adjudicated by SCOTUS.
So, Trump has a new incentive to reach once again into the wallets and pocketbooks of his dumb, deluded devotees. There is an aggressive fund-raising drive newly underway for donors to help him fight his ‘persecution’ before the Supreme Court, because it’s not HIS fight, it’s HIS PEOPLE’S fight. And they damned sure ought to pay for that fight for all the wonderfully ephemeral things he has done for them.
Trump’s flock (nay, mob) are fully convinced that he (and his crime family) are being politically, legally & personally persecuted. And real, America-loving, God-fearing patriots (the white ones anyway) should dig deep into their resources and give generously to help Trump defend himself, them, the cult and the country.
Yeah, because the current president, the Department of Justice, the FBI, states’ attorneys generals, city district attorneys, state secretaries of state, state election officials, district courts, appeals courts, former cabinet members, disloyal staffers, congressional democrats, Liz Cheney and the judges hearing Trump’s civil & criminal cases are all out to get him. Nay, they are all out to get MAGA patriots. Cough up the dough to fight them all, y’all.
Unbelievably, none of Trump’s civil and criminal charges of election interference, conspiracy to obstruct justice, defamation, sexual assault, business fraud, espionage, insurrection and campaign finance shenanigans are damaging his campaign to return to the White House.
Nor are his threats of retribution against his political opponents, his ‘disloyal’ former staffers, the sane election officials who adhered to the Constitution and the press, whom he has demeaned as “fake news” and demonized as “enemies of the people.”
To the contrary. Instead, those autocratic pledges have drawn rabid applause from his cult crowds, silence from his loyal & complicit MAGA Republican sycophants and frightening rises in his poll numbers.
I’m not versed enough in campaign finance law to know if any of this grifting by Trump & his cabal is legal under those statutes. I would refer readers to press reports, like this one excerpted from the Associated Press in October of this year:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s political fundraising machine is raking in donations at a prodigious pace, but he’s spending tens of millions of dollars he’s bringing in to pay attorneys to deal with the escalating costs of the various criminal cases he is contending with as he moves further into the 2024 presidential campaign.
Campaign finance experts say using the money to pay for lawyers in cases not related to the campaign or officeholder duties appears to conflict with a federal ban on the personal use of donor dollars, even though the Federal Election Commission has ruled the prohibition doesn’t apply to so-called leadership political action committees. The massive amount of money going to lawyers also amplifies the urgency Trump is feeling to raise money both for the campaign and his legal defense, which is unfolding on multiple fronts.
What I certainly DO KNOW is that Trump’s fundraising (nay, grifting) is deceptive. There is no such thing as “The President’s Trust.” It’s made up. It’s a scam. Nevertheless, there is THIS from today’s Trump email solicitation.
“Inner circle of trusted defenders?” Nay, the fleeced flock.
Wow. What a lucid and comprehensive summary, David. It still astounds me, not so much at the creativity in the grift, but at the support Trump continues to maintain. Everyone knew him for a jerk and skid-marked business man even before politics (I thought), but it's incomprehensible to me that such a large fraction of the American populace finds him likable now. Particularly, when he solicits money through these scummy offers that would fit much better in a MAD Magazine article than real life. I just don't understand why people support him.
Wow. What a lucid and comprehensive summary, David. It still astounds me, not so much at the creativity in the grift, but at the support Trump continues to maintain. Everyone knew him for a jerk and skid-marked business man even before politics (I thought), but it's incomprehensible to me that such a large fraction of the American populace finds him likable now. Particularly, when he solicits money through these scummy offers that would fit much better in a MAD Magazine article than real life. I just don't understand why people support him.