Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:09 pm
For a candidate who brags about his lack of campaign operation, Donald Trump is funneling a great deal of money tax-free to insiders of his presidential campaign. His campaign disclosure forms should raise red flags and cause federal authorities to take a closer look at Trump’s methods.
These “red flags,” as one expert deemed them, include a total lack of disclosure on which vendors staffers for the presumptive Republican nominee are paying, an “unusual” six-figure payout to campaign staff for nontaxable expenses and what appeared to be double reimbursements for some employees’ expense.
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Frenkel said that “red flags,” such as those potentially identified in Trump’s filings are considered “smoke” for investigators, and it’s up to the agencies to see if it is smoldering or there is fire.
“It is much too early to tell if this may lead to a criminal investigation, but (the information detailed in this report) justifies the FEC and possibly the IRS trying to determine what is behind these findings in the campaign’s public disclosure documents,” Frenkel said.
The Trump campaign’s disclosures contain suspicious double reimbursements to campaign staffers and unusually high expense reimbursements to people associated with the campaign.
It is possible that the Trump campaign is incompetent, but given the candidate’s history of dodging taxes, and his refusal to release his own personal tax returns, the odds are that Donald Trump is trying to pull a fast one over by playing fast and loose with both campaign finance and tax laws.
From Trump’s perspective, he can commit the crime and worry about doing the time later. It will take months to sort out whether or not Trump is definitively engaging in criminal activity. The process could take as long as years to sort itself out, but as the scandal surrounding the Bachmann 2012 presidential campaign demonstrated, the law will eventually catch up to those who engage in criminal activity.
Trump is a ticking time bomb who can’t seem to go more than a day or two without a new scandal. The Trump campaign may turn out to be the most corrupt in modern American political history. There is a whole lot of smoke surrounding Donald Trump’s campaign, which is why federal authorities need to immediately investigate the Republican nominee for potential criminal activity.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
