St. Trump the Fundraiser Walks on Wild Side

Letter to Romans: WSJ’s “Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation,” concedes there’s nothing new or illegal about presidents hitting up corporations for nonprofits or to help pay for public projects. But by “going big” is Trump walking on the wild side of the law?

The one line in the story that would concern me as a consigliere mentions some “donation requests” to corporate heads are misunderstood as a quid pro quo for access to the Administration or White House. The stakeholders would seem to have a lot of reasons to dream it’s true after they’ve coughed up an estimated $800M after asked to: For instance, “SoftBank donated $50 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Apple cut a check for around $25 million toward his WH ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around $10 million and Amazon chipped in around $5 million.” Again, the kicker: “Trump has been demanding large checks from companies …[and] has sometimes offered donors special access.”

Yet for the Democrats with DTS licking their chops at the bribery, extortion or honest-services fraud statutes, they’ll be disappointed to find the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled some kind of concrete “official act” in return for one’s largess must be clearly proven for public corruption charges to stick. The quid pro quo must clearly involve promises of favorable treatment from the government, preferably promises that come true. Even if “access” to or “influence” with the WH is part of the bargain … e.g., a President Clinton letting donors sleep in the Lincoln bedroom in return for a big donation for a shiny new WH ballroom … it wouldn’t be considered an actionable “official act.”  The biggest concern for a President Trump, then, is the extent of his personal involvement in making such donation requests, the extraordinary number of them being made, and the unreliability of the ruthless corporate folks he’s dealing with. Just be careful with these Mr. Wonderfuls, Mr. President. If you’re going to keep going big, give little if anything in return.

Davd Soul