Another day ending in a “y” and another story about mysterious dark money and Donald Trump. When will it ever end? Answer: When he’s finally vanquished from politics. Letting Trump get into politics, particularly at the presidential level, is like opening up a grain silo to Ben and his furry pals. What they don’t eat, they ruin. Today we learn that a mere six months ago a Delaware corporation, Launchpad Strategies, LLC was opened and its place of incorporation is North Carolina. Unfortunately, the secretary of state never heard of them. All that is known really is that Trump’s joint fundraising committee has spent nearly $2.8 million with Launchpad Strategies since April, according to campaign finance records. Sound fishy? Wait. NBC News:
The payments add up to make the company the second-largest vendor used this year by the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which is a financial hub for Trump fundraising efforts, with contributions then divided between it and other committees based on a formula. In this case, the contributions are shared with the formal campaign and Save America, a committee that has helped pay millions of dollars in Trump legal bills. […]
Little is known about Launchpad Strategies LLC beyond its existence and the millions of dollars it has taken in from a presidential campaign.
It has never done other political work for state-level or federal candidates, according to federal and state campaign finance disclosure filings. The first payment from the Trump operation was on Dec. 18, just over a month after the company appears to have been incorporated in Delaware.
Intriguing that a company just happens to pop into existence and then it’s making tons of money. Almost makes you wonder if it’s a shell company, right? And we know how Trump loves shell companies. We’re watching the disintegration of Trump Media & Technology Group, a shell company within a shell company, in real time nowadays.
“This is a digital advertising company that is primarily focused on our fundraising,” said Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign spokesman. “As you note, the FEC documents include their listing in compliance with our reporting obligations.”
Campaign finance watchdog organizations said the quasi-anonymous relationship between the company and the campaign raises red flags and reminds them of previous attempts by Trump’s campaign to mask how donor cash was being spent.
“It’s concerning to see a company formed just six months ago suddenly receive over $3.1 million from Donald Trump’s network of political committees, particularly since there is virtually no public information about this company,” said Saurav Ghosh, the Campaign Legal Center’s director of federal campaign finance reform. “Who works there, what services they offer or have provided and whether Trump’s payments to ‘Launchpad Strategies LLC’ are for bona fide services or are, instead, actually payments to other vendors funneled through a mere corporate shell.”
The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission after the 2020 election cycle alleging that Trump’s campaign ran more than $500 million through a firm called American Made Media Consultants, which it argued appeared to be a shell company designed to obscure exactly whom the campaign was paying.
The FEC deadlocked, and the complaint was dismissed.
In April, the Campaign Legal Center also filed an FEC complaint alleging a network of Trump-aligned organizations was working with a Republican compliance firm called Red Curve Solutions to “obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump’s legal bills.”
Wait a second, now. There’s ambiguity about the “true recipients” of Trump’s legal bills? Meaning, who’s paying them or who’s getting paid? Or both? This is one of those red flags which pops up when money laundering of some sort is taking place. And look at the wording of that sentence above, a complaint with the FEC alleges that a network of Trump-aligned groups is working with a compliance firm for the goal of obscuring the true recipients of a lot of Trump’s legal bills? Is that how you read it, that Red Curve is helping Trump track the money in an interesting way, that just happens to obscure the truth?
And you see the same pattern with American Made Media Consultants. Why is it Top Secret who the Trump campaign is paying? If the payments are legitimate, then there’s nothing to hide, right?
The silver lining in all this, hopefully, is that Trump’s treachery will result in further transparency in the future. But in the meantime, God alone knows who he’s fleecing and for how much and in whose pockets the money is ultimately ending up.
All roads lead to Rome…his pocket.
20+ years and 150 million taxpayer dollars spent chasing Hilary for, in the end, nothing.
But A HALF BILLION OF SHADY MONEY with Trump and what happens ?
Nothing.
Oh. He’s the leading republican candidate.
From the ‘law & order’ , ‘financial probity’ party.
The buck stops with Trump, it goes in his pocket.
“vanished”? No, any reasonable person knows it went in Von Shitzinpants’ pockets (eww) or his cronies’ pockets. It did not vanish. These “shell” corporations are bull-sh*t and need to be eliminated given the amount of fraud they are used for–they exist only to obscure what money is received and where it goes (i.e. off-shored). I think the FEC is nothing but a colossal joke in the 21st century and it is an agency that needs to be eliminated if this is the kind of enforcement they provide. Federal agencies exist to do certain things for our citizens/nation. When those agencies no longer perform their given functions they serve no purpose and need to be de-funded OR maybe investigated and do some firings and hirings to get the agency back on track.