It sure looks like Trump's coup is just another get-rich-quick scheme

Donald Trump’s election loss grift now includes profiting off his designated “recount” fund, according to a new report from Salon.

Shortly after Election Day, the Trump campaign blasted donors with clever marketing, seeking money for an “Official Election Defense Fund” to “protect the integrity of the Election!,” though it didn’t provide any evidence of election fraud.

Trump has insisted that recounts would prove him the ultimate winner of the election. However, the partial recount in Wisconsin, for which his campaign paid $3 million, did not change the result. President-elect Joe Biden won that state. Multiple recounts in Georgia also did not change the fact that Biden won that state.

Nevertheless, Trump has solicited money from his supporters to fund recounts he says will ultimately make him the winner. But, according to a lengthy footnoted disclaimer included in those fundraising emails, 75% of the contributions would go to Trump’s Save America PAC, from which Trump might eventually be able to pay himself a salary once he’s out of office, and 25% to the Republican National Committee. Only donations of more than $5,000 would then go to “DJTP’s Recount Account.”

This means merely a portion of the donated money would likely go toward recount efforts — but Trump found a way to personally profit off that as well.

Last Thursday, the Trump campaign filed disclosures with the Federal Elections Commission that revealed its “recount” fund paid $16,800 to DT Endeavor LLC. The filings were first discovered by Salon.

DT Endeavor LLC, Trump’s public financial disclosures show, is 100% owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. A certification of trustee states that “the purpose of the Trust is to hold assets for the benefit of Donald J. Trump” and that money from the trust could be distributed “at his request,” meaning Trump could withdraw funds from the trust any time he wants.

Ultimately, the public records appear to show that the $16,800 ended up lining Trump’s own pocket.

The accuracy of the disclosures is also in question, Salon noted.

Flight records pulled by Salon indicate the $16,800 of donor money was used to fund a round-trip flight from Washington to Philadelphia a day after the presidential election in a Cessna private jet, which DT Endeavor owns.

But instead of the five-figure payment being recorded as a travel expense, it was as labeled as “recount: advanced consulting,” paid on Nov. 19, the FEC disclosures revealed.

Revelations from the recent FEC disclosures contribute to the pattern of Trump cashing in on campaign donations and taxpayer money while bragging about donating his presidential salary.

Since Trump took office, he has “treated the presidency as a self-enrichment scheme,” Alan Zibel, the Corporate Presidency Project research director at Public Citizen, told the American Independent Foundation.

Between Nov. 3 and Dec. 3, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $207.5 million after incessantly repeating false claims of voter fraud and a “stolen” election to donors. Trump has continued to encourage Republican lawmakers around the country to overturn the election results.

He is also enthusiastically supporting a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and supported by 17 other Republican-led states, asking the Supreme Court to throw out tens of millions of votes and invalidate the results in several swing states that he lost.

However, all of the dozens of lawsuits filed by the campaign or Trump supporters have in dozens of lawsuits have failed to provide any evidence that the election was stolen.

In fact, the administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed in November that this year’s election was the most secure in American history. Days later, Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the head of that agency, for assuring the country in a statement that there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.