The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump’s Legal Defense Fund Issues DISASTROUS Report

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the very weak financial report filed by Donald Trump’s legal defense fund showing very little money raised and money being spent on Mar-A-Lago banquets. Go to https://PrizePicks.com/meidas and use code meidas for a first deposit match up to $100! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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for witnesses, Donald Trump decided to open up a legal defense fund. But now, new financials reveal that the legal defense fund has not raised a lot of money. When Donald Trump is actually having to disclose that money is going towards legal defense, he's not able to raise the money. However, when he says, hey, give the money to the Save America Political Action Committee, there he's able to raise money. A new tax filing of Trump's legal defense fund states that the fund has only raised $1.6 million over the last month

and spending, get this, less than $30,000. This comes from a new report from Roger Sullenberger over at the Daily Beast. And you take a look at the source document. You don't have to read the article. We can look at the source documents. Here it is. Political Organization Report of Contributions and Expenditures, Form 8872 right here. And as you start going through this as well, you see that some of the biggest money just came from one donor as well.

The Karen L. Hildenbrand Living Trust, a million dollars of the $1.6 million. So it only raised about $600,000 when you don't include the Karen Hildenberger Living Trust. And that trust and its benefactors are associated with a very dangerous QAnon movement. And we'll talk about that more in just a bit. Let's go through this Daily Beast article as well. It's called Trump's Legal Defense Fund's Biggest Expense Was Mar-a-Lago. So in addition to not raising a whole lot of money, where the money that went out did go to was not legal fees, but an event apparently at Mar-a-Lago, according to this article. Here's what the article says. A legal defense fund for Donald Trump appears to have placed its spending priorities in a strange place, not on legal bills, but on Mar-a-Lago. New tax filings show Trump's legal defense fund

raised about $1.6 million over the last six months and spent less than $30,000. But more notable than how little the legal defense group has spent is what they didn't spend on, namely legal services, as well as what they did pay for, a party at Mar-a-Lago. And when you go through the expenditures, you can see right there the event at Mar-a-Lago. Goes on to say, the group, a political nonprofit called the Patriot Legal Defense Fund,

was created by the Trump campaign officials in July to help pay down the beleaguered former president's snowballing court costs. While the fund can accept unlimited donations from both individuals and corporations, its first periodic financial report submitted to the IRS last week indicates a very slow start, with only about $1.6 million in receipts. Even more alarming from the group is that the majority of the money, $1 million, came from a single contribution given by a donor couple whose previous associations with QAnon conspiracy theories forced the campaign to cancel a fundraiser ahead of the 2020 election.

So compare the legal defense fund, what it raised, $1 million from that one couple plus $600,000. Compare that to Donald Trump's Leadership Political Action Committee, which according to Open Secrets, if you add up all of the other groups, and we're not talking about the legal defense fund, but the leadership pack and other groups affiliated with Donald Trump. According to Open Secrets, the Trump political operation has steered about $130 million in donor money to cover legal fees. And one such example of that we saw two weeks ago where Donald Trump had that expert Eli Bartov testify. And Bartov was asked, well, who's paying you all of this money?

Bartov said, this is in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case. And Bartov said, I had received about $900,000 to give this testimony today. And I was paid by the Donald Trump Political Action Committee called the Save America Political Action Committee. On further evaluation, according to an article by Good Morning America, Trump spent about $2.5 million, so more than the legal defense fund itself was able to raise on expert testimony in his fraud trial, not even on the legal fees, just on having experts testify in a case that Donald Trump has already been adjudicated by the New York Attorney General civil fraud case judge to have lost. Donald Trump lost the case on summary judgment, yet spent $2.5 million on experts. Now, where is Donald Trump getting this money from?

Well, the Political Action Committee sends out those fundraising emails all the time. Save America, 1,000 times match, all of this crazy crap that they promise. And in my own opinion, it seems that donors believe that money is going to political stuff, not going to the legal defense stuff. We're paying for expert witnesses for a so-called billionaire. And one of the bases for my opinion there is when he actually labels something legal defense fund, it only raises about $600,000 in addition to the 1 million that came from that family. But when he calls it the Save America Political Action Committee and spews all of this disinformation, what happens there? He's able to raise tens of millions of dollars, which he ends up funneling for expert witnesses and his lawyers and to hire lawyers for witnesses and for all of the discovery stuff.

And again, open secret saying about one hundred and $130 million if you add it all up. And there were reports back from July where he had raised during that accounting period, he had spent rather about $40 million on legal fees from the Save America Political Action Committee. Now, what did Donald Trump's lawyers say in response to that article published by the Daily Beast. They are so utterly predictable that I'm sure you know they say, oh, you can't rely on the financials. The financials aren't accurate that we reported for the Legal Defense Fund. We are recalling it, basically. Here's what the Daily Beast says.

The day after this article was published, the PLDF, that's what they call it, the Patriot Legal Defense Fund, filed two new financial statements for the same period. Neither were marked as amended versions, but both wiped the slate clean, claiming that the legal defense fund had neither raised nor spent money. So they went from filing something that showed that $18,000 went to Mar-a-Lago. They raised a total of $1.6 million. Then they replaced that filing with two other filings that wiped the slate clean and said that there was no money raised or no money spent on anything. So then the Daily Beast, doing good journalism here,

asked again the PLDF representative, the Patriot Legal Defense Fund representative for comment, who then responded that the original filing was incomplete, saying, quote, it's now being updated and will be refiled prior to the January deadline. In other words, you can't rely on what we previously filed. That said, $18,136 were going to banquet hall fees in late November at Mar-a-Lago with the total of $28,578 being spent, apparently not on legal fees at all.

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being accused of and being found liable by judges across the country, specifically the judge Arthur Ngoran. And then separately, their conduct in just kind of just screwing up all of the filings because they can't get it straight what it is that they're even saying here. Like here's another example of that with the Trump SPAC, the Digital World Acquisition Company, when they submitted all of their financials, they then had to do another filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that there were material weaknesses in the filings with Donald Trump for the Digital World Acquisition Company, which was supposed to acquire or still is supposed to acquire Trump Media, which is the true social media platform. They then had to file and say, oops, we screwed up. You can't rely on our financials. I mean, you don't have to take my

word for it. Take the word of the digital world acquisition company, SEC Public Filing. It's right here. Non-reliance on previously issued financial statements or a related audit report or completed interim review. In connection with the company's current auditor's review and re-audit of such 2021 audited financials, after discussion with the company's management and its advisors, on October 13, 2023, the company's audit committee concluded that the company's 2021 audited financials included errors related to the accounting of certain expenses previously described on the Form 8K filed with the SEC on May 18, 2023. The company's audit committee,

in consultation with management and the company's auditor, determined that such errors in the 2021 audited financials result in a material weakness. As a result, such 2021 audited financials should also no longer be relied upon. The company's management concluded that in light of the error described above in 2021's audited financials, a material weakness exists in the company's internal control over financial reporting and that the company's disclosure controls and procedures were not effective. And then they basically asked to amend. And this is just a pattern that we see over and over again.

They can't get their financials straight. They're constantly engaged in this behavior. And then when they get called out on it, they play the victim and they whine and they go, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me? But then I think the one clip I want to show you here, which is the most absurd of all justifications for why Donald Trump has to go and grift all of this money off of donors and then have it go through the political action committee to pay the legal fees of people like Alina Haba.

By the way, she's been paid over $1.5 million or so based on the past disclosures by the Save America Political Action Committee. I mean, she's like the worst lawyer like ever. I mean, she's like the worst lawyer in the country, you know, making that amount of money. And so she goes on Fox and she's asked a question. Well, why are you spending all this money? And you'll see her response here. She goes, well, because Trump is independently wealthy, that is why he needs to raise this money off of people. Play this clip. Alina, let me get your take on the money being spent here on legal fees. Did you hear what Congressman Byron Donalds just said? He said that he believes the strategy of the Department of Justice is to bleed Trump dry,

to bring so much legal issue and problems to Trump that he has to spend all of this money on legal fees. You are the general counsel of his super PAC. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the political committee has spent more than $40 million this year on legal fees as he and a constellation of advisors have been swept into these various investigations. How much has it been and how are you directing the money in terms of paying for legal fees? Tens and tens of millions of dollars. And I do think that that is part of the strategy. It is incredible. They have brought in people like myself who have nothing to do with

these cases i was not part of the administration just so that lawyers have to get lawyers and these lawyers cost money and when you take a broad net and you try and intimidate anybody who is part of his circle whether i couldn't even say inner circle mar Maria, it's gone further than that. You know, the valet at Mar-a-Lago, the chefs, the whatever. It's crazy. And it is on purpose. Nothing they do is not intentional. It's calculated. And it is to make him bleed. The problem is that President Trump is independently wealthy as well. And they forget that. And he has said at rallies, I will do whatever it takes. If it means I have to spend my own money, I will.

He is very protective and kind and generous. And at the end of the day, they're going to try and take him down financially. And that's just frankly, not a good angle. I don't know if they've seen his wealth, but it's probably not the best angle to go at. Alina- Final point that I'll say here.

Do you have any doubt that the people who are complaining about the economy right now, despite economic indicators being better right now by far than under Donald Trump, are some of the same people who are giving Donald Trump lots of money, tens of thousands of dollars even, adding up in the aggregate to tens of millions of dollars through Donald Trump's Leadership Political Action Committee to fund his legal expenses. A so-called billionaire funding his legal expenses off the backs of hardworking Americans by saying that the money's going to save America's political action committee. And then he finds new ways to grift, for example, saying that if you buy 47 of his NFTs, 47 of them, he will cut off a piece of, this is what Donald Trump said,

he will cut off a piece of the suit that he wore when his mugshot was taken in Fulton County, Georgia, and he will give it to you in a trading card for the low price of about $5,000. This conduct is grifty. It is reeks of bad faith, and it's just embarrassing to watch. But again, one of the main thesis here that I want to reiterate though too, is that if Donald Trump frames this issue or frames the fundraiser as, hey, I need money for legal fees, look at the legal defense fund, unable to raise significant money when he says that this is the Save America PAC. Look how much money he raises, funnels that to all of the lawyers and expert witnesses

and cases involving sexual abuse and defamation where he's found liable. That's where that money's going. The New York Attorney General's civil fraud case for his own personal fraudulent financial valuations, that's where that money's going after he's already lost the case, going to third party witnesses and other things like that. Anyway, tell me what you think in the comments below, please. I'm Ben Micellis. This is the Midas Touch Network.

Hit subscribe. Check us out also at patreon.com slash Midas Touch. But if you hit subscribe right here on the YouTube, that is free. Let's grow this network. Thank you so much for watching. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report?

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