By now you may have heard that Kevin McCarthy flip-flopped on his barely-registered resistance to the Trump candidacy Tuesday.
Kevin told CNBC that while Trump could win a 2024 election, Kevin was not sure Trump was the strongest candidate.
UH OH! And by this morning, Kevin had done an about-face! Of course, Trump is the bestest candidate!
Why Kevin? Why?
I think, and this is speculation on my part, it has to do with Trump's control of the MAGA donor lists, and also perhaps the GOP fundraising stream. Consider these verified facts:
Republican fundraising is done almost exclusively via the FOR-PROFIT platform WinRed, set up by Jared Kushner during the Trump administration. This caused contention with Ronna Romney McDaniel, according to a book by The Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender. (Fox News link)
Bender claimed that McDaniel "viewed the WinRed deal as a legacy project that could benefit the party for years to come. Keeping the new company as a nonprofit, she told Jared, would make sure it remained as an arm of the RNC."
Bender alleged that "Jared wasn’t interested. ‘I don’t give a f--k about the future of the Republican Party!’ he told Ronna inside the hotel meeting room. ‘Good to know,’ Ronna shot back. ‘I will be running for chair for a second term, and I will make sure you don’t come anywhere near this!’"
Jared, of course, won that battle. WinRed is for-profit, and doesn't reveal who profits (or writes off the losses) from their organization.
Unlike their Democratic counterpart ActBlue, WinRed does not ask donors up-front for "tips" to support their infrastructure and staff. Instead, they take a percentage off the top of every donation from the Republican campaign using the platform.
This has caused understandable complaints and whining from Republican candidates, who never get the full amount intended from any online donation.
Meanwhile, WinRed will not open its books to any investigation. They sued to prevent state attorneys general from investigating their fundraising "techniques." They have lost in court as the Eighth Circuit has ruled that "federal campaign finance laws don’t bar states from enforcing their own consumer protection laws."
Remember when Donald Trump's campaign benefitted from "opt-out" tiny check boxes on WinRed's platform? And many Trump donors were charged monthly for donations they intended to give once. The Trump campaign had to refund 122 million dollars after the 2020 campaign.
The payments, according to The Times, essentially functioned as an "interest-free loan" from Trump's donors to his campaign, which faced upheaval and financial turmoil in the months leading up to the November 3 election. Eventually, tens of millions of donations were refunded throughout 2020, with WinRed pocketing the transaction fees, The Times said.
Where did Jared Kushner arrange for that pocketed transaction fee money to go?
Since it was organized in January 2019, WinRed has processed over $2.8 billion in earmarked contributions and over $212 million in contribution refunds. WinRed keeps its fee even if a contribution is later refunded.
Based on this tremendous volume of financial activity, WinRed has earned — by a conservative estimate — at least $114 million in fee-based revenue.
During the same period, however, WinRed has reported spending less than $2,700 on operating expenditures, along with just $243,000 in “debt” to its affiliate company, WinRed Technical Services (WTS), for unpaid legal, consulting and insurance fees; WinRed has never made a payment on its debt to WTS.
These paltry figures cannot possibly reflect the committee’s actual operating expenses.
This means WinRed is either blatantly failing to report its operating expenditures or is failing to report “in-kind” contributions in the form of free goods and services that it’s receiving from vendors.
When candidates or PACs receive free or discounted services, they have to report the value of the services (or the discount) as a contribution from — and an expenditure to — the service provider.
Either way, WinRed’s conduct violates federal campaign finance laws, and deprives its contributors, other committees, and voters of crucial disclosure information.
In the meantime, Republican officeholders are furious that WinRed wants to increase its prices to campaigns:
In a series of private meetings in recent weeks, Gerrit Lansing, the president of WinRed, has told the leaders of the Republican National Committee, the House and Senate campaign arms and former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign that WinRed’s prices needed to go up.
The Republican officials all objected.
Mr. Lansing’s pursuit of outside investors to expand WinRed’s digital footprint and offerings — including talks with advisers to Paul Singer, a major Republican financier — has spurred further discussions about the company’s ownership structure.
Paul Singer? I guess we can't trust SCOTUS to rule against WinRed, then. Don't even talk to me about the half-Republican FEC.
Which brings us back to Kevin McCarthy, who is held on a very short leash by Jared Kushner's father-in-law. What's his power over WinRed? And what about the MAGA donor lists? Who gets those, and when?
This is more than just "I can't let the Republican base get mad at me." This is about Kevin McCarthy's job, livelihood, and caucus's ability to raise money to get re-elected.
I surmise that Trump has all the Red cards.
Here I am discussing WinRed with Driftglass and Hal Sparks last November. (Video is not work-safe.)
