We’ve known for years now that the Trump family is truly as corrupt as they come. However, a new bombshell report from Business Insider is now serving as confirmation that their deceit and debasement honestly and truly knows no bounds.
According to the report, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had a hand in setting up a shell company that doled out secret payments to the now-outgoing president’s various family members and ultimately spent almost half of the 2020 Trump campaign funds.
A source who’s familiar with the situation told Business Insider that Trump’s son-in-law/White House senior adviser directed that the shell company’s board be filled by his sister-in-law Lara Trump, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman.
Campaign finance records reveal that the company in question was incorporated as American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC. Records also show that the company ultimately spent a staggering $617 million of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest.
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In speaking with Business Insider, told advisers and campaign staff to Donald Trump told the publication that they were unaware of how the shell company operated and officials with the campaign even went so far as to conduct an internal audit of the company’s operations, headed by former campaign manager Brad Parscale. However, the findings of said audit were apparently never reported. Upon Brad Parscale’s termination from his position as campaign manager, his replacement, Bill Stepien, allegedly has very little involvement with the AMMC company.
A former advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign said, “Nothing was done without Jared’s approval. What Stepien doesn’t know is because Jared doesn’t want him to know.”
A civil complaint was filed with the Federal Election Commission by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center back in July that accused the Trump campaign of “disguising” approximately $170 million in spending “by laundering the funds” through the AMMC shell company.
Brendan Fischer, the center’s director of federal reform, said, “[It’s a] scheme to evade telling voters even the basics on where its money is really going [and a] shield to disguise the ultimate recipients of its spending.”
There is a possibility that the Department of Justice may open their own criminal investigation into the shell company and their schemes should the federal government suspect that the payments were a “knowing and willful” violation of elections laws. According to several sources from the Justice Department and FEC who spoke with Business Insider, investigators could already be looking into the campaign’s activity.
The campaign’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh, said, “Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place. John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members.”
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
