Thread by @EricLiptonNYT

America First Action--the pro Trump SuperPAC--is PRO Trump in more than the standard way. It supports him politically. It also pays him and his family personally---in a way. Look at this. (Stick with me, a lot of payments here)

MORE>>>The spending is effectively going into the pockets of Donald Trump and Eric and Don Jr and Ivanka (the kids own stakes in the hotel operating company too)

MORE>>What's exceptional here is it's not just big $$$ events America First Action holding at Trump HotelDC, which have to presume are fundraising events. (You got to spend money to make money?) It's small dollar spending too on hotel rooms, meals at BLT Prime steak, bar tabs etc

MORE>>>Quite a system the Trump family has going. Donors write checks to a SuperPAC that supports Trump. SuperPAC writes checks to Trump family. Everyone is happy? Even parking tabs are covered. A nice gig.

What is the total tab here, just by America First Action? Let's turn to the FEC download and Excel for that. $448,435, it looks like. With a chunk of that spending coming during the pandemic. Which is nice for Trump hotel. Kept the revenue coming in.

And here is the thing. This is pennies compared to $$ at Trump hotel by Trump campaign/Trump Victory, joint fundraising committee. Add up this spending, and you get more than $4 million since Trump was sworn in. Funny that POTUS makes a big deal of donating his salary to charity

There is your Saturday early afternoon tour of some FEC spending figures, at no charge. Thanks @Z_Everson at @1100Penn for inspiring me to look at these again.

Here is a piece I did this week re Trump hotel that looks at some of this spending, which of course started even before Trump was sworn in, i.e. almost from the moment the hotel opened in Oct 2016 nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/…

Perhaps the most incredible part of all this is that this is all happening in plain sight. Spending taking place in large amounts every few weeks, and disclosed with the FEC. And is considered normal now.