'The most transparent administration ever," they said. Yes, we want our military members paid, but this screams of something nefarious. It always does with Donald J. Trump. For some reason, Erik Prince's name sprang to mind when reading about this.
CNN reports:
The Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown, the Defense Department confirmed on Friday.
“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of Service members’ salaries and benefits,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to CNN, adding that the money was accepted under the department’s “general gift acceptance authority.”
The move marks a striking departure from government procedure for funding the military, which traditionally relies on public funds appropriated by Congress. And it raised immediate questions about the donor’s identity and motivations for cutting the nine-figure check to the government.
The $130 million donation is unlikely to make any meaningful impact toward covering salaries of the roughly 1.3 million active duty military troops, netting out to about $100 per service member.
Congressional appropriators on both sides of the aisle said Friday that they were seeking more information from the administration about the specifics of the donation, but had yet to receive any explanation.
Democrats also raised concerns about its legality, contending that the gift acceptance authority cited by the Pentagon only permits gifts for a handful of specific purposes — such as funding military schools, hospitals, cemeteries or to benefit wounded troops or the dependents of those injured or killed in the line of duty. Donations can also face additional, tighter restrictions if they come from foreign governments or organizations.
“Using anonymous donations to fund our military raises troubling questions of whether our own troops are at risk of literally being bought and paid for by foreign powers,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the Senate’s defense appropriations subcommittee, said in a statement.
Yeah, that. Would Trump sell us out to foreign powers? You bet! We've been down this road before with his first administration. It won't even come close to covering military members' pay during the Trump-Epstein government shutdown, so what's the fucking point? Sounds sort of pay-for-play to me. Count on it.
Update:
The New York Times reports that Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of Trump, is the anonymous private donor. The paper adds that the donation may constitute a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or accepting voluntary services.
