Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

NEW: As the 2020 campaign hurtles toward a close, questions remain about a last-minute, $10 million lifeline Trump threw to his 2016 campaign, a loan that helped catapult him into the presidency buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

Speculation has swirled around the source of that money.

But nothing is known about whether the $10 million loan — which the campaign reported as a contribution — was ever repaid, who might have repaid it, and whether it would even be legal to do so

Late in the 2016 campaign, Trump bragged that unlike Hillary Clinton, he couldn’t be bought by powerful corporate interests, because he was using his own money rather than taking big donations buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

In fact, Trump had put in far less than the $100 million he’d pledged. His campaign was running out of money and being vastly outspent by Clinton, who was leading in most polls. buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

With less than 2 weeks to go before election day, Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon later told the FBI, Trump wasn’t willing to cut a check.

So Steve Mnuchin proposed a solution: Make it a loan. The campaign could repay him with small donations that were still coming in.

Bannon, Mnuchin, and other advisors pressured him for five hours, until, Bannon said, Trump gave in. The campaign reported the money — but called it a “candidate contribution” rather than a loan. buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

According to the Campaign Law Center, the idea that Trump would write a large check, sign documents characterizing it as a loan, then almost immediately recast it as a donation, “just doesn’t add up.”

Read our full report here:
buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…