Interesting how the rats are now fighting over the cash box and not the least bit surprising. Business Insider:
Former President Donald Trump’s post-election political team has fired one of its top fundraisers who played a key role in organizing the January 6 “Save America Rally” that preceded Trump supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, Republican strategists and Trump advisors told Insider.
The Trump-approved group America Alliance fired veteran fundraiser Caroline Wren at the end of last month, according to the Trump advisors. Other Trump fundraising groups sent cease-and-desist letters to Wren demanding she not cite Trump in her own efforts to recruit high-dollar donors, they said.
Now as you would expect, the person fired is denying she was fired, and the cease and desist letters have been denied as well. The sin that she committed, apparently, is that she wanted to raise money for 2022 and for the 2024 down ballot, as well as raising money for Trump and in Trump world, that concept does not fly, a tall a tall.
But other Republicans said Wren got caught in the turbulence of Trump’s ever-changing, post-election political efforts as she attempted to extract herself from Trump’s political team and start her own, yet-to-be-named network of conservative donors to bankroll Republican races up and down the ballot.
“She’s just a fundraiser that emerged out of nowhere after the election and was in the middle of everything,” the Republican strategist of the spat between Wren and Trumpworld.
Wren is a buddy of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s and was one of the highest paid staffers on Trump’s 2020 campaign. She had previously worked for establishment Republicans and she apparently thought she could continue in a traditional role, raising money for future elections. This conflicts directly with Trump’s efforts to raise money for himself alone.
This is going to be an ongoing and escalating spat, mark my words. Trump desperately needs money and he’s not going to let the Republican party co opt his brand without a hassle. For their part, the rest of the party feels joined at the hip with Trump. 2022 is going to be an atypical election cycle, to say the very least.
I’m part of the group of people who have long believed Trump wants ALL the fundraising donations to flow through him. He’s demanded a fire hose stream of money from the RNC and GOP fundraisers TO him but when it comes to distributing it to others? Not so much. A few candidates here and there will get a bit next year after surgically attaching their mouths to his butt like that Humanacentipad thingy in that SouthPark episode, but Trump intends to keep almost all of what is raised by him or on his or the RNC’s behalf. The funny thing is that the actual professionals in the GOP know it but are too afraid to say so. That Trump will keep almost all the money is the worst kept secret in politics!
What I’d love to see is his reaction to the cost of even half-assed rallies this summer. I’m not sure how big the event near me last Sat. (Greeneville NC is I think a couple of hours away at most but that was still too close!) but I’ll bet he went spastic when he found out how much it cost! No more taxpayers funding the things, and being Trump he long ago forgot how much that shit cost before he “won” in 2016. And now he’s got legal expenses far greater than he had back then.
While I still have grave concerns about 2022 given the systematic way the GOP is going about rigging the results in their favor, the lack of money so many candidates will face because of Trump is a cause for some hope. Not to mention all the “process” stories about GOP infighting and dissension that will distract from their messaging, especially since ANY criticism of Trump or a hint that he’s the source of their problems will make things worse for individual candidates and the GOP as a whole.
The problem with all the voting suppression legislation is that the GQP is tipping its hand WAY too soon. There’s no truly critical elections this year and that means they’ve given the folks a full year to figure out workarounds. It also doesn’t help that their absentee ballot clampdown is the epitome of fighting the last war. COVID will likely be well in the rearview mirror by Election Day 2022, meaning folks will show at the actual polls and have the right IDs available.
Now, subtract funding that Trump is trying to grift off and you have a pack of highly beatable morons in all but the most blood red of areas.
Why do Rs put up with the obvious grift? Oh, don’t answer: they’re in thrall to the cult of personality ( though WHAT personality, I ask?). Zombies for Trump??
So not only is Trump sabotaging the political prospects of Republicans but he’s still trying to steal their fundraising too, both from within and without the GQP. Gee, that’s too bad.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-fundraiser-ellipse-rally
Caroline Wren, a Trump fundraiser, is listed as a “VIP Advisor” in a National Park Service permit for the Jan. 6th rally at the Ellipse. Text messages and a planning memo show the title downplays the active role she played in organizing the event.