Trump’s Campaign Was Just a Scammy Money Grab All Along
Donald Trump has transferred $4.6 million of donations to his campaign into his businesses by charging the campaign for travel and food expenses, according to a new report from Forbes.
Federal Election Commission filings show that Trump’s aviation company, Tag Air, has charged the campaign $4.2 million since his 2024 bid kicked off. Secret Service flight costs—members are required to travel with Trump on the campaign trail—reportedly account for more than $800,000.
The campaign has also spent around $60,000 between the Trump National Doral golf resort in Florida and the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. And that’s to say nothing of the $332,000 the campaign has paid to host events at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence.
It’s not the first time Trump has pulled this kind of enrichment scheme: As president, he reportedly charged Secret Service agents “exorbitant” rates—sometimes five times the General Services Administration–mandated government rate—to stay at Trump-branded hotels in the United States, and untold millions at Trump properties abroad. As a candidate in 2016, Trump promised to divest from his business holdings if he were elected president. In January 2017, not two weeks before his inauguration, he reneged on that pledge.
It’s no secret that Trump has been hurting for cash. After losing the 2020 election, he solicited $250 million in supporter donations for his “election defense fund.” In the last six months of 2023, he spent $27 million of his supporters’ money on legal fees. And in the wake of several legal judgments against him—including a $450 million fine in his civil fraud case and an $83 million fine in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit—he’s been forced to rely on unsavory, if not outright illegal, fundraising methods. Knight Speciality Insurance, the only surety willing to post Trump’s bond in the civil fraud case, famously lacked the assets to back the bond.
The writer John Ganz recently wrote about the mafioso weltanschauung animating Trump’s approach to politics. If it wasn’t already clear from his 45 years of grifting, it’s obvious now that he does business like a gangster.
