Trump’s Business Took In At Least $81,000 From Election-Denying Candidates For Secretary Of State
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Then-President Donald Trump counts banknotes for an offering during service at the International Church of Las Vegas on Oct. 18, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
The campaigns for three secretary of state candidates who all denied the results of the 2020 presidential election spent $81,000 at properties owned by Donald Trump, according to a report published on Tuesday by government watchdog Issue One.
While all three of these Trump-endorsed candidates lost, preventing them from being in a position to put their thumb on the scale for his 2024 candidacy, they did put cash in his pocket.
One of the most-prominent pushers of Trump’s Big Lie, Arizona State Rep. and Oath Keepers militia member Mark Finchem, was the biggest spender. His campaign dropped $53,000 over four payments to Mar-a-Lago in March through May 2022. He posted photos from May from the former president’s private club, thanking Trump and the MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell for hosting a campaign event.
Mark Finchem and Donald Trump
Instagram/Mark Finchem
In August, Michigan’s Kristina Karamo, a poll worker in 2020 who made false claims of ballot fraud, shared a photo of herself standing alongside Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club where he summers. Her campaign reported paying the business $22,000 that month.
Donald Trump and Kristina Karamo
Instagram/Kristina Karamo
The campaign for former Nevada Assemblyman Jim Marchant spent $6,000 at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas in 2021, making him the only one of the three candidates who didn’t travel out of state to patronize a Trump property. It’s not as if he hasn’t made such a pilgrimage, though: After losing the election, Marchant shared a photo of himself with the former president at Mar-a-Lago.
Jim Marchant and Donald Trump
Instagram/Jim Marchant
Through June 2022, Trump-endorsed candidates for office had paid his businesses at least $1.4 million.
Issue One also identified eight political consultancies, not owned by Trump, that were also “raking in the dough” from the campaigns of election-denying candidates for secretary of state.
