Make Trump Pay
Donald Trump has accrued over $100 million in legal bills, systematically exploiting campaign funds and political action committees to avoid personal financial responsibility. From civil fraud cases to criminal investigations, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated a pattern of using other people's money to shield himself from legal consequences. Our mission is to hold him accountable – not just legally, but financially – by exposing the extensive web of corruption, unconstitutional actions, and financial misconduct that has defined his political career and threatens democratic integrity.
Here are links to some articles about Trump from various sources. These documents chronicle Trump's systemic abuses of power, financial misconduct, and legal challenges, revealing a troubling pattern of corruption and potential criminality that threatens democratic norms and accountability.
Trump’s Use of Campaign Funds to Pay Legal Bills
By Daniel I. Weiner and Owen Backsai
The Brennan Center for Justice
May 10, 2024
Thanks to loopholes and lax enforcement, former president Trump is using campaign funds to pay almost all of his legal bills.
Since leaving office, former president Trump has been involved in an array of criminal and civil litigation — some that relates to his campaigns and presidency and some that does not. To cover the enormous legal bills, estimated at more than $100 million, he has turned to his political action committees (PACs), essentially having campaign donors pay costs for which he would otherwise be on the hook personally.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-use-campaign-funds-pay-legal-bills
Cities seek more than $750K in unpaid bills for Trump campaign events since 2016
By Megan Lebowitz and Corky Siemaszko
NBC News
October 11, 2024
At least four cities and a county are still waiting to be reimbursed for costs associated with local law enforcement and first responders during Trump's visits.
A timeline of Donald Trump’s many (alleged) crimes
and convictions
By Jennifer Savin
Cosmopolitan
January 20, 2025
After a tense election campaign against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, Donald Trump is once again President of the United States as of 20 January 2025. For some this is the preferred outcome. For others, it is both disappointing and anxiety-inducing – not least because it sees Trump formally become the first twice-impeached president with a criminal conviction to his name. Hardly a recipe for stability.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a62831426/trump-allegations-timeline/
When will Trump pay his $175 million appeals bond? Here’s what’s next in his civil fraud case
By Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press
PBS News
March 26, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump got a break this week when an appeals court cut down the amount of money he needs to put up to pause collection while he appeals a $454 million-plus judgment in his New York civil fraud case.
The 100 Worst Things Trump Has Done Since Descending That Escalator
By The New Republic Editors
October 21, 2024
Some were just embarrassing. Many were horrific. All of them should disqualify him from another four years in the White House.
Donald Trump has done a lot of bad, evil, crazy, and weird things since he came down that golden escalator in July 2015. Some of them were truly ghastly—family separation, January 6. Others were partly ghastly and partly embarrassing or gobsmacking (the love/hate affair with “Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un). Still others were just embarrassing—Sharpiegate, trying to buy Greenland. All of them, serious or not, contribute to the picture of a man who shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office again.
https://newrepublic.com/article/187252/trump-100-worst-things-list-2015-2024
10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency
By Robert Reich
September 18, 2024
Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.
Let me jog your memory. Here are 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency — in no particular order.
https://robertreich.org/post/762010231403429888
Trump Used His D.C. Hotel to Take Unconstitutional Domestic Emoluments, Fleecing the Taxpayers
By the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives
October 18, 2024
Trump Also Accepted Other Corrupt Payments from Federal Job Seekers, and Presidential Pardon Recipients
President Trump’s worst offenses
By Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
October 19, 2020
Nearly four years into President Trump’s tenure, it seems indisputable that he is the most corrupt president in American history. But with the near constant acts of corruption coming from the Trump administration, it is often hard to keep track or maintain perspective. CREW has not only exposed many of these offenses, but also provided vital legal analysis and research to pursue accountability for the president and his allies. Below is a brief summary of some of the most consequential categories and instances of corruption we have seen from this president and his administration.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/analysis/president-trumps-worst-offenses/
Donald Trump’s “Golden Age” of Corruption and Cronyism
By Timothy Noah
The New Republic
January 20, 2025
“The golden age of America begins right now,” Donald Trump said Monday at the start of his second inaugural speech. “Our golden age has just begun,” he said at its end. Actually, what Trump intends to usher in is, as my TNR colleague Matt Ford noted this morning, a second Gilded Age—an epoch of political corruption. Trump (or his speechwriter) wants you to believe he’s the second coming of Pericles, who presided over the golden age of Athens. In truth, Trump is the second coming of Trump.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-golden-age-corruption-220637427.html
Trump ends Fauci's security detail and says
he'd feel no responsibility if harm befell him
By Will Weissert and Zeke Miller
January 24, 2025
Associated Press
President Trump has ended federal security detail for Dr. Anthony Fauci, despite ongoing threats to his life.
Fauci has hired private security after his federal protection was canceled by Trump.
Trump has also revoked protection details for other former aides-turned-critics, including Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, due to threats from Iran.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ends-faucis-security-detail-175704076.html
Trump’s punishment for his crimes? None
By Moira Donegan
The Guardian
January 11, 2025
What kind of a sentence, exactly, is an “unconditional discharge”? When Judge Juan Merchan, of New York, issued the sentence on Friday, he declared that Donald Trump, convicted in his courtroom of 34 felonies, will face no jail time, no probation and no fine for falsifying business records in order to conceal an affair he had with the adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 election. His punishment, that is, is that there will be no punishment at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/11/trump-sentencing-trials
Trump 'resorted to crimes' to overturn 2020 election, prosecutors say
By Madeline Halpert
BBC News
October 3, 2024
Donald Trump "resorted to crimes" while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and should not escape charges, prosecutors say.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93pdlg4dlno
Chronicling Trump’s 10 worst abuses of power
by Marshall Cohen
CNN.com
January 24, 2021
Former President Donald Trump flouted the limits of presidential power unlike any of his recent predecessors, leaving behind a legacy of unmatched abuses that range from violations of longstanding norms to potentially criminal behavior.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics/trump-worst-abuses-of-power/index.html
Is Trump Mad or Bad?
By Richard Murphy
Tax Research UK Blog
January 24, 2025
Trump's first few days in office make it clear he's either mad or bad, because there are no other explanations available for what is happening. But is it possible he's both?
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/24/is-trump-mad-or-bad/
How Much Did President Trump Add to the Debt?
By The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
January 10, 2024
In the recent GOP primary presidential debate, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley claimed that President Trump added $8 trillion to the national debt while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that President Trump added $7.8 trillion to the debt. These statements are true, depending on how you measure additions to the debt. We estimate the ten-year cost of the legislation and executive actions President Trump signed into law was about $8.4 trillion, with interest.
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt
Judgment in Trump's New York fraud case stands at $502 million ahead of inauguration
By Graham Kates
CBS News
January 16, 2025
Quietly, just before the calendar turned for the new year, an already whopping debt tentatively owed by President-elect Donald Trump and co-defendants in his New York civil fraud case hit an eye-popping, interest-accumulating milestone: half a billion dollars.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-new-york-fraud-case-502-million-inauguration/
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