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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew @FEC filing: Trump Victory paid $400,000 to Trump Hotel in Q2 alone--steering over $3 MILLION in
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New @FEC filing: Trump Victory paid ~$400,000 to Trump Hotel in Q2 alonesteering over $3 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to Trump family, properties & businesses with his 2020 re-election campaign & Trump MAGA joint fundraising cmte$17.4M+ counting 2016
malaise
(268,844 posts)Lock up these grifters
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Sharing my research:
'Chart showing grifters (Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon) on one side and grafters (Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Michael Cohen, Scott Pruitt, and Steve Mnuchin) on the other.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Sean Gallup/Getty Images, JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images, Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
On MSNBC, theyre calling Michael Cohen a grifter. Its a term weve been hearing a lot lately. Vanity Fair recently described EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt as making a strong play for Most Shameless White House Grifter. The magazine used the same pejorative to describe former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, before he had to resign for hailing Gulfstream IVs like Ubers. Steve Mnuchin has been called a grifter; so has Jared Kushner. Timothy Egan of the New York Times has described the entire Trump administration as a White House of Grifters.
Too easy, Tim! The description is not inaccurate so much as it is imprecise, like calling Richard Nixon a crook. Nearly everyone who chooses to work for Donald Trump is disreputable in one way or another; Ali Baba didnt find 40 wise men in the cave. But to label everyone in Trumpworld a grifter misses important subtleties. It conflates grifters and grafters, and it ignores the crucial distinction between the two.'
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/trumps-white-house-can-be-divided-into-grifters-and-grafters.html
Maria Konnikova did an excellent podcast series about grifters, many of whom she met working on her book The Confidence Game. For the grifter, ripping people off is seldom the point. The grifter is an artiste, who invests in the long con. He (or she) takes pleasure in gulling the trusting and eluding justice. The grifter has multiple partners, multiple stories, multiple identities. The grifter is theatrical, if not actually delusional. The grifter wants your applause, not just your pocket watch. The Duke and the Dauphin in Huckleberry Finn were grifters, charlatans par excellence. Charles Ponzi was a grifter. William Avery Rockefeller, the father of John D. Rockefeller, was a grifter.
The grafter, by contrast, is a run-of-the-mill abuser of the public trust. He needs no audience and prefers not having one. Where the grifter is shameless, the grafter shrinks from exposure, which could only endanger the racket. He is greedy, but not creatively ambitious. He toils in mundane self-dealing, insider trading, bribe taking, witness tampering, and other forms of workaday corruption. Spiro Agnew was a grafter. William Jefferson, the Louisiana congressman who kept cash in the freezer in his apartment, was a grafter. Illinois governors are inevitably grafters, as is any politician whose name is preceded by Boss (see: Louisiana).
Where the grifter is shameless, the grafter shrinks from exposure, which could only endanger the racket.
Got the distinction? Good. Now lets play grifter or grafter. Donald Trump is an archetypal grifter. Using the presidency to promote your golf courses, hotels, and real estate business is grifting. So is getting people to pay a premium for buildings with your name in big, gold letters. Licensing your name is what every grifter dreams about. The Apprentice, a reality show about pretending to be a huge real estate mogul, was grifting squared. Trump Universitygetting paid to share your secrets about pretending to be a huge real estate mogulwas grifting to the third power. Trump-branded steaks, Trump wine, Trump bottled waterbottled water is grifting, by definition.
Jared Kushner, by contrast, is a rich-kid grafter, who lacks his father-in-laws charisma and imagination. Trying to quietly use your power to convince Chinese or Qatari investors to bail out your disastrous investment in 666 Fifth Ave.thats grafting. Selling EB-5 visas to Chinese investors by touting your political connectionsalso grafting. Kushners machinations recall Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkitts notion of honest graft, when your private interests happen to align nicely with your public office. Thats Jared K. to a T.'
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)Link to tweet
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This might explain why Parscale was demoted but not fired.
If the Trump family was paid by the campaign, those payments would need to be disclosed. Instead, theyre paid through Parscale. https://nytimes.com/2020/03/09/us/trump-campaign-brad-parscale.html
empedocles
(15,751 posts)calimary
(81,179 posts)Big-ass waterfront mansion, fancy car (Ferrari if I recall correctly), yacht, the works! He helped himself to the pig trough, big time. And for awhile, he successfully conned the conman.
They tend to find each other.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)he did successfully use targeted advertising on farcebook and other tech-y venues to help persuade the goobers to install red don in the White House. That's gotta be worth something, maybe the drive train of a Ferrari.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,984 posts)Cosmocat
(14,560 posts)they truly wont care one bit.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,984 posts)They love donating to the billionaire who said he'd fund his campaign himself and wouldn't take donations.
But if you tell them that their $100 donation paid for 20% of a night of luxury for an "operative", then they'd not be so happy. They will pretend they are, but they'll think about the next time they think about making a $100 donation.
yonder
(9,662 posts)something like that.
Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)when first we practice to deceive" Shakespeare I believe.
DENVERPOPS
(8,802 posts)pocket change, compared to the MOUNTAIN of money the Trump Clan has stockpiled in their bank accounts from their myriad of other schemes..............
It was bad enough, but they have turned the Covid Nightmare into an incredible Cash Cow Profit Center for themselves and a ton of other uber wealthy Republicans, Republican Politicians and his entire administration.
We ain't seen nothing yet compared of what is in store for the next 3-6 months. They are on a roll with no end in sight.......
If I were religious, I would say: God Help Us.......WASF
Katie Bar the Door!
I am really really really regretting not going to Canada on February 11th, 1968............
Putin, Trump and entire Republican party is hell bent on destroying Democracy and looting the country and obliterating all of us good people.....
aggiesal
(8,908 posts)Rhiannon12866
(205,035 posts)He never intended to win, let alone do the job.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)And campaigning is fun, what with all those KKK rallies.
Dem2theMax
(9,650 posts)New @FEC filing: Trump Victory paid ~$400,000 to Trump Hotel in Q2 alonestealing over $3 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to Trump family, properties & businesses with his 2020 re-election campaign & Trump MAGA joint fundraising cmte$17.4M+ counting 2016 https://t.co/jS7rp4258K
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)nuxvomica
(12,418 posts)Anybody know?
iluvtennis
(19,843 posts)of trump.
Fla Dem
(23,620 posts)spanone
(135,802 posts)Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)This cabal will be taking any available cash with them as they leave. They are bankrupting the country. Imagine how much they took from the Billions set aside for the wall?