Fraud Is His Middle Name

Yesterday, the January 6th Committee referred Donald Trump to the justice department on four charges. Of the four, Eugene Robinson writes, Trump's attempt to "defraud the United States" is the most obvious and easy to understand:

The fraud allegation relates mostly to a deceitful attempt to field slates of fake electors to reverse the result of the 2020 election. More broadly, however: What has Trump’s entire political career been but a great big fraud?

Start at the beginning. Before 2009, Trump was a Democrat who generally supported the party’s positions on issues such as abortion. It was only in 2012, just a decade ago, that he began seriously seeking to amass power within the Republican Party — and changing, or pretending to change, his views on social issues accordingly.

He needed to win support from evangelicals, an important GOP constituency, so when he campaigned for the presidency in 2015, he called the Bible his “favorite book” but was unable to cite any verses. In 2016, he visited Liberty University, a conservative school founded by Jerry Falwell, and did quote a verse from Second Corinthians about liberty but absurdly referred to the book as “Two Corinthians.”

When he launched his 2016 presidential bid, he claimed that since he was so wealthy, he would self-finance his campaign — and thus not be beholden to special interests. He did spend some of his own money, but only about a fifth of the total expenditures he reported to the Federal Election Commission came from his own pocket. The rest he raised from donors big and small, including low-income supporters for whom giving any amount of money was a stretch.

While president, he operated a gaudy hotel in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the White House. Foreign governments seeking favor and influence spent more than $750,000 at that hotel during Trump’s term in office. And the Secret Service spent more than $1.4 million staying at Trump properties over four years, facing nightly rates as high as $1,185 per room.

The money grift continues. This year, Trump formed a “Save America” political action committee that raised an estimated $100 million, mostly by constantly dunning small-dollar donors. Trump gave the impression that the money would be used to help Republicans in the November midterm elections, but even his handpicked candidates received no more than a trickle of cash. In Georgia, defeated GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker’s campaign accused Trump of “deceptive fundraising.”

Just last week, Trump ballyhooed a “major announcement” that turned out to be the sale of kitschy digital trading cards of him photoshopped as an astronaut, an Old West sheriff, a superhero and other macho personas. The video of Trump announcing this NFT collection would have made the cheesiest late-night infomercial pitchman blush. And the $99 that each gullible purchaser sent in went not to any political cause but to Trump himself. Even Trump’s longtime ally, Stephen K. Bannon, watched Trump’s spiel and moaned, “Make it stop.”

Trump's middle name is John. The truth is that Fraud should be his middle name.

Image: Province Of Manitoba