Trump is doing massive damage to democracy and fleecing his own donors

For days, President Donald Trump has been blasting his email list with urgent pleas for contributions to fund litigation challenging the results of last week’s election. The consensus among elections experts is that these lawsuits have no chance of changing the outcome of the election, which former Vice President Joe Biden clearly won. But that’s not stopping Trump. He’s not only damaging American’s faith in our elections, he’s also misleading his donors and will probably profit off the endeavor. 

The fine print on Trump’s fundraising solicitations makes his intentions clear. The funds are going to a new Trump “leadership PAC” called Save America (60%) and the Republican National Committee campaign account (40%) — with funds only going to Trump and RNC legal expense accounts if a particular donor has already given the maximum allowable amounts to Save America ($5,000) and the RNC campaign account ($35,500). This looks like a good old-fashioned bait and switch. Leadership PACs like Save America are notorious slush funds, raising money under higher limits than candidate committees and subject to fewer restrictions on how the money is spent.