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ELI5 If Trump is a supposed billionaire why does he keep promoting cheap crap to get money?
(self.explainlikeimfive)
this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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A lot of his value is tied up in assets that aren’t liquid (real estate). Also he is probably not worth as much as he says.
But the main reason is that these “cheap crap” things you mention are probably vehicles for money laundering from foreign actors. The best example are the NFTs he was hawking for awhile. Costs next to nothing to make and foreign states can buy a ton of them to give him money without it being easy to detect. Even if it is detected it is still legal to buy silly NFTs, right? Certainly more so than a foreign government giving a candidate bags of cash for nothing.
Foreign nationals, let alone foreign governments, are not allowed to give money to political campaigns in the United States. Actually illegal. Bill Clinton got in trouble for it
If you can prove that an NFT scheme was foreign campaign money laundering in court, people can go to jail.
Don’t forget the Trump Hotel during his presidency that took huge “bookings” from foreign nationals during his presidency. The “Law and Order” party naturally jumped all over this as a violation of the Constitution…, oh wait.
For sure. But of course dude tried a coup on live tv and we are having trouble getting the justice system to hold him to account. So getting proof of the NFT scheme that I outlined as a hypothetical is probably going to be harder.
Partially because the coup is coming from inside the house. Representatives, senators, and SCOTUS seats already planted.
It's not campaign money. It's the "honest fruits of labor" that he "earned" by selling products. Even though every normal person can see that he's a fucking grifter, maga morons can't. So, now he has plausible deniability for any money "earned" in this "honest day's work".
In court:
How does one go about proving that money laundering occurred? Genuinely curious because I know it's illegal. I guess you'd need to catch someone admitting that they did it?
I see his wife has a Xmas collection for sale including NFT's.
Those went up in price after the initial sale afaik
I thought foreign actors could not give to a canidate?
Sure but they can buy "art"
I believe that it is illegal, yes (I’m not a lawyer). But that is the point. They can “buy” a bunch of cheap useless stuff from him instead of giving him money. That’s the essence of money laundering. Do something that superficially looks legitimate so that you can move a bunch of money that would otherwise be illegal.
I believe that's the fallout from the Citizens United ruling. There are also "Dark money" PACs that are called as such because they can keep the contributions anonymous, but these PACs are allowed to donate unlimited funds to the campaign as long as there's no "coordination" between the PAC and the candidate...
Our government is for sale.
They can buy a million gold shoes that never get shipped.
Fuck it. Ship them. They still aren't worth $100k and don't cost more than 100c. The grift is complete.
But then they'd have to spend money on shoes to send to Russia, instead of not paying their lawyers!
#truth
They can't give, but they can purchase.