Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner approved the creation of a shell company that “secretly paid” Trump’s family members and “spent almost half of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest,” according to a Business Insider exclusive report.
The company, American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC, took more than half a billion dollars from the Trump campaign’s massive $1.26 billion war chest and was largely shielded from having to publicly report financial details.
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A source told Business insider that Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was the company’s president, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew was its VP, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman was treasurer and secretary.
Trump’s top advisers and campaign staff told Insider they were unaware of how the shell company operated.
Top campaign officials even conducted an internal audit of its operations under former campaign manager Brad Parscale but never reported those findings. The next campaign manager Bill Stepien had very little knowledge about the company. As one source told Insider: “What Stepien doesn’t know is because Jared doesn’t want him to know.”
The Campaign Legal Center filed a civil complaint with the FEC in June accusing the Trump campaign of laundering $170 million largely through the company.
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Brendan Fischer, the center’s director of federal reform said “it is a scheme to evade telling voters even the basics on where its money is really going [and a] shield to disguise the ultimate recipients of its spending.”
“Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place. John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Business Insider Friday.
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The Federal Elections Commission has the power to issue fines if it concludes campaign finance laws were breached. But the Department of Justice could also open a criminal investigation if federal prosecutors believe a “knowing and willful” violation of election law took place.
