‘A large criminal enterprise’: Win or lose, Trump’s top campaign aides rake in the cash
The bad news for President Donald Trump: He may well lose reelection later this year.
The good news for his top campaign staff: They will wind up really rich either way.
Brad Parscale, whom Trump named to run his 2020 effort in early 2018, has already collected $38.9 million through his companies from Trump’s various reelection committees between January 2017 and the end of March, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.
Gerrit Lansing’s payment processing company, which he started while a staffer at the Republican National Committee, has taken in $1.7 million. Katie Walsh, briefly a Trump White House aide and a former RNC chief of staff, has received $877,424 through her firms. And Richard Walters, who at age 30 is the current chief of staff, makes $244,943 a year in salary but last year was paid an additional $135,000 through his own consulting firm. Since the Trump presidency began, he has been paid a total of $755,324.
For Parscale, who just a few years ago was designing websites in San Antonio for Trump’s properties, among other clients, the sudden wealth has afforded him a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a pair of million-dollar condos, a brand new $400,000 boat, and another half-million dollars in luxury cars, including a Range Rover and a Ferrari.
“This thing has been a large criminal enterprise. It’s like that scene in the ‘Goodfellas’ after the heist,” said Republican consultant Stuart Stevens, a veteran of the George W. Bush and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. “Dishing out furs to mob bosses’ girlfriends and wives.” [Continue reading…]