It’s hard to throw a rock in New York, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, or Chicago without hitting something that Donald Trump owns. His footprint is huge and the diversity of his businesses makes it easy for his campaign to use those assets whenever possible. However, The Donald may be taking it to the extreme. Will the FEC notice?
They already have. While they’re not taking any action at this time, it’s clear that based upon Trump’s campaign filing with the FEC that he’s profiting in many ways off his own campaign, his situation is very different from any other in history. He claims to be self-funded, though that’s not entirely true considering that the vast majority of the money that he’s “donated” to his campaign has actually been loaned. In other words, his self-funding is actually going to be paid back from donations if he runs his campaign for long enough.
That doesn’t stop him from profiting off the backend to the tune of over $2 million so far.
$2.2m of the $17m Trump has spent on his own campaign has gone to pay Trump-owned businesses. https://t.co/v8KpPVn3qk
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) March 1, 2016
While we’re leaning away from calling this illegal, it does make one wonder if there’s any real risk to Trump’s personal finances by running for President. Considering his history of bad business decisions, it might be best for him to hit the stump rather than make deals.