Trump Raked in $200 Million Since Election
NYT (“Trump Has Reeled in More Than $200 Million Since Election Day“):
Since his victory in November, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s allies have raised well over $200 million for a constellation of groups that will fund his inauguration, his political operation and eventually his presidential library, according to four people involved in the fund-raising.
It is a staggering sum that underscores efforts by donors and corporate interests to curry favor with Mr. Trump ahead of a second presidential term after a number of business leaders denounced him following the violence by his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Trump has promised to gut the “deep state” and made various promises to industry supporters. Among the pledged donors for the inaugural events are Pfizer, OpenAI, Amazon and Meta, along with cryptocurrency firms.
The total haul for the committee financing his inaugural festivities — at least $150 million raised, with more expected — will eclipse the record-setting $107 million raised for his 2017 inauguration, according to three people briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share internal financial information.
Other committees benefiting from the fund-raising blitz include a super PAC called Make America Great Again Inc. and its associated nonprofit group, which is expected to be used by Mr. Trump’s team to back his agenda and candidates who support it, while opposing dissenters.
This would seem obviously to be a case of influence peddling if not outright graft. But it’s oddly not only legal but normal. It has been routine for as long as I’ve paid attention for Presidents-Elect to raise large sums for inaugural festivities.
An April 2021 Reuters report (“Pfizer, unions, others donated $61.8 million for Biden’s inaugural“) provides context:
U.S. President Joe Biden raised $61.8 million for his inauguration events, receiving large contributions from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals, according to a financial disclosure.
The Democratic president’s inaugural committee took in $1 million in contributions each from about 10 big companies, including Pfizer Inc, the maker of one of the COVID-19 vaccines being deployed in the United States, as well as from AT&T Services Inc, Bank of America Corp and Boeing Co.
Corporations making $1 million donations also included Uber Technologies Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp and Qualcomm Inc, according to the filing submitted on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission.
The committee also received $1 million from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a major labor union.
About a dozen individuals donated $500,000 each, according to the filing.
The filing did not give details on how the money was spent on the events accompanying Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, which nixed traditional inaugural balls due to the coronavirus pandemic but included televised performances by Lady Gaga and Garth Brooks.
The inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, including security, was paid for by the federal government.
The money raised by Biden’s committee was well below the $106 million raised by Donald Trump for his 2017 inauguration, but exceeded the $53 million raised by Barack Obama for his first inauguration in 2009.
So, offhand, it would appear that the main difference here is one of scale: Trump raked in way more money than Biden or Obama.
Then again, these monies are ostensibly for an eventual Trump presidential library in addition to the inauguration. And others have raised boatloads of money for their libraries. Indeed, Obama apparently raised $311 million in 2022 alone and well over $1 billion so far.
The Obama Foundation raised record sums in 2022 for its programming and ongoing construction of the presidential center in Jackson Park.
The foundation received $311.4 million in contributions and grants last year, according to the foundation’s 2022 IRS filing and annual report . This is the largest sum the foundation has made since its founding in 2014, per Obama Foundation spokesperson Courtney Williams. It’s almost double the previous year’s fundraising of $160.21 million .
The jump comes in large part from two new mega donors — tech CEOs Brian Chesky of Airbnb and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon — who each gave $100 million towards programming. (Chesky also gave a separate $25 million in unrestricted funds.) In all, more than 57,000 donors contributed last year.
Since fundraising for the Obama Presidential Center began in 2017 , the foundation has raised a total of $1.1 billion, according to reports. In summer 2021 , just before construction on the center broke ground in Jackson Park, the foundation set a total goal of raising $1.6 billion by 2026 to finance construction and an endowment to sustain it. The center is set to be completed in 2025.
That said, a crucial difference is that Obama waited until he was out of office to solicit that money—but not to start raising it.
After turning over the White House this month to a successor who aims to scuttle some of his key initiatives, President Barack Obama and his foundation will embark on an epic endeavor — racing for mega-donors who can rocket-launch their fund drive for a presidential library and museum on Chicago’s South Side.
The scale is daunting: While Obama’s library planners decline to provide a cost estimate, the George W. Bush library and endowment broke records at more than $500 million, the latest example of skyrocketing costs. Adding to the pressure, the Obama project is the first to be built under sharply increased federal requirements for a sustaining endowment. Obama chose to add another hurdle by pledging not to personally raise money for the project during his term in office.
[…]Typically, fundraisers for presidential libraries find their lead donors from among the biggest supporters to election campaigns and inaugurals. In Obama’s case, the pool is deep. He lifted the bar for presidential campaigns, raising nearly $750 million in 2008 and $722 million in 2012.
“There are a lot of rich, liberal donors who … will open up their checkbooks,” said presidential library expert Benjamin Hufbauer, an associate professor at the University of Louisville.
[…]White House press secretary Josh Earnest in May rejected any suggestion that a donation to the foundation could guarantee access.
“The president has made a commitment that he will not be raising money for the foundation while he’s still in office,” Earnest said at a news conference. “What we have said about donors to the (election) campaign also applies to donors at the foundation, and it’s simply this: Donating in support of the president’s foundation does not guarantee you a meeting with the president of the United States. It also doesn’t prevent you from getting a meeting with the president of the United States.”
He was responding to findings this year by MapLight, a not-for-profit that tracks political contributions, that 15 of 39 named donors to the Obama Foundation visited the White House for small meetings or events with the president, including all donors whose family or foundation had donated more than $100,000.
The Obama Foundation has taken a number of steps aimed at avoiding the sorts of roiling controversies that have singed the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising efforts.
While Obama remains in office, the foundation agreed not to accept contributions from for-profit entities, federal lobbyists, or foreign nationals or agents.
“We are limiting our fundraising now to a group of longtime supporters of the president and limiting the amount that they can contribute,” Martin Nesbitt, chairman of the Obama Foundation, told reporters last summer. “But when the term is over, we will modify that in a way that facilitates us getting to our fundraising goals.”
The whole process is, to say the least, problematic. It seems obvious that sitting politicians shouldn’t be allowed to take massive contributions from donors, whether they be wealthy individuals, corporations, or other entities. Surely, the Treasury could pay for inaugural events and presidential libraries.
But, of course, when our whole system of campaign finance requires politicians to raise millions of dollars—indeed, as much as a billion for a presidential race—that cat is already out of the bag.