After yet another long day in Trumpworld campaign filings—for a weird new story running tomorrow morning—it's only increasingly clear that Trump has a big money problem. Here's his joint fundraising committee's topline vs. Biden's JFC. (This is in addition to his legal fund PAC.) Again, this is Trump's most "legit" PAC—the one that does almost all of his fundraising. His other PACs lost money, and his team is clearly doing everything it can to stuff his campaign account so he doesn't look weak. Those moves, however, are what tomorrow's story is about

Oh look, Joe Biden was shorted 4,000 votes in Virginia’s Prince William County, revealed thanks to the only criminal prosecution from a special “Election Integrity Unit” that the state’s GOP Attorney General launched in 2022. nbcwashington.com/news/local/nor… Imagine the congressional hell we would have to endure if this went the other way

I broke the Comer story. He’s correct that it wasn’t a loan. I never called it a loan. But Joe Biden’s brotherly loan was repaid—canceled out, no benefit. Comer, however, enriched his brother $18k, attaching his holding LLC to the transaction. Unclear on gift tax implications.

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1724490735679098945

Point of the story is that Comer is investigating Joe Biden for getting no benefit from a loan to his brother. Stack that against Comer, who also had a 20-year running COI with his family’s industry. Should Comer be subpoenaed for helping his brother financially? Should Biden?

NEW: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says his finances make him "relatable." I reviewed 15 years of his finances and found it's hard for any American to understand—let alone relate to it. Here's a financial profile on the new Speaker, as much as we know
thedailybeast.com/mike-johnsons-… Transparency advocate group End Citizens United (@StopBigMoney) just filed a House ethics complaint against Johnson, included in this piece, naming multiple apparent violations. But the inconsistencies we uncovered go even further

Hawley may have signaled this surprising—and to many people, long overdue—move at a Faith & Freedom Coalition event in June, where he said, "As for corporate America and criticizing them, let's get one thing straight. Corporations are not people."

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1719320194474996201

Hawley's former general counsel, Sean Cooksey, is currently vice chair of the FEC

NEW — House Republicans have a comeback plan for their first disastrous impeachment inquiry hearing: A star fact witness against Joe Biden! (Who also sued his own dying father’s charity for $900,000.)

Here’s my report @thedailybeast
thedailybeast.com/star-impeachme… The witness is Tony Bobulinski. In 2015, he flew into such a rage over a charity donation that he barged into his parents’ home & shook his father’s head, knowing there was a brain tumor in there. His dad died 2 months after Tony sued him. Tony fought the case for 10 more months.

Lindsey Graham's campaign has spent about $1.16 million this year. One out of five dollars went to lawyers.

Since Jan. 6, Graham's campaign has spent roughly $720,000 on legal fees. Before Jan. 6, his total combined legal costs — going back to 2011 — was about $74,000. All conveniently recorded here fec.gov/data/disbursem…

NEW: GOP candidate Anthony Sabatini plagiarized huge chunks of his honors thesis in philosophy at the University of Florida—lifting directly from Wikipedia. He graduated magna cum laude, went to law school, became an attorney & lawmaker. Me @thedailybeast
thedailybeast.com/gop-candidate-… You really have to read this to understand just how egregious this is. The first *sentence* is plagiarized. Entire paragraphs. He also misspells his central subject’s name throughout the entire thing—“Freidrich” Nietzsche.

Also haven’t seen many lab leakers or contrarians consistently clarify they mean the possibility of an *accidental* leak & aren’t endorsing the obvious subtext among the many kooks using the debate in bad faith to imply that scientists/intel are saying COVID was a bioweapon

https://twitter.com/rottenindenmark/status/1682763808023121922

Genuinely hope I am wrong about this, @NateSilver538

Hunter Biden will plead guilty to $1.2 million in tax violations & a gun charge, getting 2 years probation & order to enter a rehab-type program in exchange for wiping the gun charge. Far cry from the allegations from the far-right GOP... washingtonpost.com/national-secur… This is fully consistent with reports about what the DOJ — opened by TRUMP's DOJ — has been investigating since at least December 2020 cnbc.com/2020/12/09/hun…

Jack Smith requested the court to limit the distribution of discovery information in the Trump documents case, citing among other things "information pertaining to ongoing investigations" — and "financial information of third parties" Poorly written tweet there. But I'm not sure exactly where third-party financial information fits within the set of facts that have been laid out publicly so far

It’s worth a think or two to realize that Smith, for whatever reason, chose to move quickly to indict Trump in Florida last week rather than wait a little bit for SCOTUS to issue this ruling, which would’ve made it less risky for him to indict in friendlier DC

https://twitter.com/joycewhitevance/status/1669350657625845760

If Smith reeeaaallllly thought venue would make a difference, he could have held off on charges until we got this verdict. That also would’ve removed Cannon from the equation entirely. But he went ahead anyway, suggesting this case may not have been a major factor in his decision

This has 40,000 likes already. Here's why it's bullshit.

https://twitter.com/OKeefeMedia/status/1640902212745412609

First, I did a short fact-check on this last night. The short of it is that you see these donor patterns frequently in FEC filings. It's not new. And it's not, as O'Keefe suggests here, a Democratic problem. Not even mostly.

https://twitter.com/SollenbergerRC/status/1640933666556633088?s=20

NEW: While GOP Rep. James Comer is investigating the so-called "weaponization" of government, when he was a candidate for governor, he weaponized a grand jury investigation to help him battle assault allegations. He lost. Me @thedailybeast thedailybeast.com/gop-chairman-j… @thedailybeast The prosecutor who ran the grand jury probe—which the Comer campaign started—donated to Comer while the jury was investigating

Trump defenders point to the FEC's decision to dismiss the Stormy Daniels allegation. But the FEC never cleared Trump. Instead, the three GOP commissioners said the statute of limitations was approaching and Cohen had already been punished, so it's not worth it to go after Trump

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1638163987824033792

Also, in the Stormy Daniels case, the FEC's own independent office of general counsel said there was reason to believe Trump, the Trump campaign, & the Trump Org had violated the law. The Republican commissioners still voted it down

NEW: Special Counsel Jack Smith is reportedly investigating payments to Trump's Save America PAC vendors—and it could finally unravel what one campaign finance expert called "one of the biggest campaign finance violations in history." Me @thedailybeast thedailybeast.com/trumps-shell-s… @thedailybeast In 2020, Trump's campaign hid the recipients of nearly $800 million behind a shell company. It continued after the election. And Save America PAC paid tens of thousands in "consulting" fees to newly created LLCs owned by former Trump staff simultaneously getting paid directly.

NEW: We can confirm that Matt Gaetz won't be charged in connection with a years-long sex trafficking probe, according to several lawyers briefed on the case. Me & @Jose_Pagliery @thedailybeast thedailybeast.com/matt-gaetz-rep… @Jose_Pagliery @thedailybeast We revealed a whole lot of evidence against Gaetz, including Venmos & a pardon letter Greenberg wrote to Donald Trump directly implicating Gaetz. DOJ also seized his phone in its obstruction probe, but declined to bring charges, reportedly citing possibly problematic witnesses

Who knew that Tina Forte, the Republican stunt artist who ran against AOC last year, had a checking account stuffed with between $25 million and $50 million? With no reported income or other assets disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/fi… My pal @WillBredderman did some reporting last year around her family's, er, "operations" thedailybeast.com/aoc-rival-tina…

George Santos just filed his year-end report—and apparently found a new treasurer to put his name on it: Andrew Olson.

$28,000 in, $43,000 out, $28,000 on hand

docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/… At least two of the donors are tied to entities Santos told me are his clients — one of them, according to the filing, gave the max $2900 on the day before the NYT bombshell

Hope CPAC has a similar statement for NBC News, who confirmed my reporting that a REPUBLICAN Herschel Walker campaign staffer has accused Matt Schlapp of “groping” and “fondling” his crotch

https://twitter.com/CPAC/status/1611516185689919489

They seem pretty damn dismissive of this brave person who taking a major risk by speaking out against someone who wields substantial power in his industry, and awfully confident that this is the only man who will come forward

NEW: Turns out that when self-identifying multimillionaire George Santos moved in last month with his sister, she faced eviction. Now he says he’s moved out. But like everything with Santos, there’s a lot more to it…
Me w/@WillBredderman @JustinRohrlich thedailybeast.com/george-santos-… For instance, two weeks before Santos’ sister received $30k in federal rent assistance, after failing to pay rent for nearly two years, she somehow donated $8700 to Santos ally Michelle Bond