{"id":11991,"date":"2021-01-22T22:21:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=153774"},"modified":"2021-01-22T22:21:42","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:21:42","slug":"following-the-money-to-dark-places-with-the-stink-of-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/22\/following-the-money-to-dark-places-with-the-stink-of-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Following the Money to Dark Places With the Stink of Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/p>\n Photo by Peter Van Agtmael\/ Magnum for Time Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n It seems the veterans of the Great Capitol Insurrection, high and low, are not faring well. Scores of rioters have been and continue to be arrested<\/a>, many moronically incriminating themselves en route – with their “Murder the Media” t-shirts, their selfie videos <\/a>proclaiming Trump needs to “fire the bat signal” and “death is the only remedy” for lawmakers, <\/span>their getting booted <\/a>from airplanes for yelling “Trump 2020!” and their admissions <\/a><\/span>they were in “a fit of rage” on that now-murky day after unsuccessfully trying <\/a>to flee to non-extradicting Switzerland. Their slimy Fuhrer, meanwhile, is daily being proved guilty of fomenting it all. Investigations by both Bloomberg<\/a> and Open Secrets<\/a> have found that Trump’s campaign and assorted cronies not only paid over $2.7 million to individuals and firms that organized the pre-riot rally, but that they likely worked with dark money groups and shell companies to illegaly launder<\/a> their respective funds. According to Open Secrets,<\/em> the full extent <\/a>of Trump campaign ties to the riot is still unknown; thanks to opaque practices<\/a> around campaign finance laws, FEC disclosures only provide “a snapshot” of campaign payments that are further hidden by being routed through shell companies – at least one of which was set up<\/a> by Jared Kushner – “making it difficult to know who the campaign paid and when.” In other words, grifters gonna grift, which is why many are urging further investigations in order to #ProsecuteThemAll<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n What’s known <\/a>to date: At least eight people listed on the rally <\/span>permit <\/a>granted by the National Park Service<\/a> worked for Trump\u2019s campaign. They include <\/span>Maggie Mulvaney, niece of Mick, whose <\/span>title <\/a>is director of finance operations and who’s listed as the rally’s<\/span> \u201cVIP Lead.\u201d Rally personnel also listed on <\/span>the permit<\/a> include \u201cVIP Advisor,<\/a>\u201d operations associate<\/a>, production manager and stage manager – the latter two roles filled by the owners of Event Strategies Inc., the largest recipient of Trump campaign funds with a payday of $1.7 million. Thus begins a tangled web of ongoing dealings<\/a> with dark entities like America First Policies<\/a> and American Made Media Consultants LLC<\/a>, Trump’s spending clearinghouse, which routed over $759 million to as-yet-unknown recipients. With the riot’s ominous backstory<\/a> still emerging, Dems on the Senate Finance Committee have begun asking <\/a>the IRS to investigate the tax-exempt status of dark money groups involved in rally planning, part of a larger probe into tax-exempt groups. That spotlight on Trump et al will only get brighter in the lead-up to a Senate impeachment<\/a> trial slated for Feb. 9. It probably didn’t help when Chuck Schumer, providing comic relief with an inadvertent, smirking self-own, declared<\/a> Trump must be held accountable for inciting “the erection.” Cue <\/a>bad puns about uprisings, hard-hitting analysis, and sedition that cannot stand. This trial outta be…something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clubbing Capitol police. Getty Image<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thugs in Pelosi’s office. New York Times photo.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n More phallic flagpoles. Reuters photo.<\/em><\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/CACghYYFMX<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Anthony (@twon8) January 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n