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Team Trump Has a Big Money Problem—And It’s Not His Legal Bills
It turns out that Donald Trump’s millions of dollars worth of legal bills aren’t the only financial struggles on his mind. The former president has raised just a fraction of the money that his opponent has on the campaign trail.
Trump’s presidential campaign raised $10.9 million in February, bringing his war chest to a grand total of $33.5 million, according to campaign disclosures. In comparison, President Joe Biden’s campaign raised $21.3 million, giving him a total of $71 million in campaign spending money. And he plans to use it to drown Trump in attack ads, Politico reported late Wednesday.
It’s a similar situation at the party level. The Republican National Committee raised $10.7 million in February, for a total of just $11.3 million fundraised overall. Poor fundraising was one of the main reasons that former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel was forced to step down.
The Democratic National Committee, on the other hand, raised $16.6 million, for a total of $26.5 million cash on hand, according to Politico.
Trump’s money situation isn’t helped by the fact that most of what he fundraises has had to go towards his myriad legal struggles. A pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc. has reportedly sent more than $50 million to Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, since last year to help cover the former president’s legal bills. And it’s unclear how much longer that can continue.
Save America spent $5.6 million on legal expenses in February alone, and it was only kept going by a $5 million refund from MAGA Inc. The super PAC now has just $7.75 million more it can refund to Save America, which only has about $4 million in cash left.
So it’s no wonder that Trump has had to resort to hawking ugly sneakers and promoting fan-supported GoFundMe campaigns to raise money. He has only days left to post a nearly half-billion-dollar bond in his New York civil fraud case before the state attorney general can start seizing his assets as repayment.
Trump recently posted a $91.6 million bond in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit, which was guaranteed by the Chubb Corporation, much to the insurance group’s clients’ dismay. He still owes Carroll $5 million from her first lawsuit.
Trump also owes nearly $400,000 to The New York Times, thousands of dollars for gag order violations, and $382,000 to Orbis Business Intelligence, the consulting firm owned by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Trump had sued Orbis over a dossier Steele compiled in 2016 that alleged Trump and members of his inner circle had been “compromised” by Russia’s security service.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tore into Tony Bobulinski during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, pressing conservatives’ so-called “deadly witness” on his ability to point to any illegal activity conducted by President Joe Biden—and in doing so, urging Republicans to admit that the whole proceeding was “based on false charges.”
“I have a quick question. Simple. Is it your testimony today that you personally witnessed President Joe Biden commit a crime?” the New York lawmaker asked.
“I believe the fact that he was sitting with me while I was putting together—” Bobulinski started, before Ocasio-Cortez cut in, narrowing her question.
“Did you witness the president commit a crime? Is it your testimony today?” she prompted.
“Yes,” Bobulinski replied.
“And what crime did … you witness?” Ocasio-Cortez continued.
In the ensuing back-and-forth, Bobulinski vaguely responded with categories of crimes rather than specific ones, flagrantly patronizing Ocasio-Cortez for not understanding corruption statutes like RICO, only to then be schooled by her explanation that RICO is simply an umbrella category and not a specific crime.
“Clearly what we are seeing here today is a continuation of the 15-month saga of the Republican majority lost in the desert,” Ocasio-Cortez said, starting a speech that would lean into her conservative colleagues for pushing forward with an impeachment probe based on meritless claims that have since been thoroughly debunked—including by one of the investigation’s supposed star witnesses, Alexander Smirnov, who is currently in prison after admitting that he spun the story with the help of top Russian intelligence.
“What we are seeing is that this committee was warned about the falsehoods of these allegations long before that, warned by Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “And yet they proceeded anyway. The chairman proceeded anyway. This committee was warned by a Rudy Giuliani associate right here, Lev Parnas. After that document, about the falsehoods of this, then held hearings where your own expert witnesses said that there was no grounds for impeachment, and you proceeded anyway.”
“At this point, the story is not the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is why it’s proceeding anyway. Why is this committee proceeding based on false charges?” she added.
Of course, some of her colleagues across the aisle didn’t take so kindly to her laying it all out on the table, deciding instead that the best course of action—rather than respond frankly—would be to attempt to twist Ocasio-Cortez’s vocal offense into fodder for their social media followers.
“Weekly meltdown by Rep. AOC,” posted South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace, sharing a clip of the speech. “Someone needs to remind the Left, just because you are loud, does not mean you are right.”
Weekly meltdown by Rep. AOC.
Someone needs to remind the Left, just because you are loud, does not mean you are right. pic.twitter.com/AHJRJGPHw4
In a sign of how well the Republican impeachment investigation into Joe Biden is going, right-wing networks on Wednesday barely covered a House hearing that was part of the probe.
The House Oversight Committee heard testimony Wednesday from Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden’s onetime work partner with a history of shady business dealings, and Jason Galanis, who is testifying via video call from a federal prison where he is serving a 14-year sentence for financial fraud. Republicans claim both men can prove the Biden family is guilty of corruption, despite the fact that Hunter says he and Galanis only met once.
But before the hearing even began, Newsmax host Rob Finnerty asked House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who has helped lead the probe, why Republicans insisted on continuing with the investigation. The Republican House majority has shrunk so much that articles of impeachment are unlikely to pass.
“It kind of seems like you’re chasing your tail at this point because this is not going to go anywhere,” Finnerty said.
When the hearing began, Fox News barely acknowledged it was happening. Instead, the network only showed the hearing in a small, soundless box in the corner of the screen.
One of the few times Fox did show the hearing was during the opening statement from Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas said he had seen “precisely zero........
© New Republic
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