If you've wondered who's behind the "Amuse" account that sluices misinformation into the MAGA bloodstream & gets boosted by Elon Musk et al as if it's a news source, it's a tech entrepreneur named Alexander Muse. He's listed on the Forbes Business Council. councils.forbes.com/profile/Alexan…


Muse says he got his start raising $15 million from—guess who—George Soros, then sold for big bucks: archive.ph/4hQUy
He most recently co-founded ViewMarket.
Here are Twitter archives, but all you have to do is click the X link on that Forbes page: archive.ph/http://twitter…

NEW: Kash Patel hid his million-dollar Chinese payout from the Senate. Here’s how. On Jan. 3, Patel filed his financial disclosure to the Office of Government Ethics. He signed it under penalty of perjury. This form reports Patel’s $1M-$5M stake in Elite Depot, Ltd — the Cayman Islands holding company for the $50 billion Chinese fast-fashion megacorp SHEIN.

Kash Patel started two online payment companies with a veteran of offshore financial management. Late last month, they were both folded under a parent company. Patel only disclosed a relationship with one of these three corporations. I’ve spent the last several days looking into Kash Patel’s mysterious Paytriots, Inc. TL;DR: his co-founder specializes in small offshore banks; his disclosure omits ties to related firms; & these companies mysteriously restructured the day before he signed his ethics agreement

Been wild seeing people over the last 6 months get confronted with objectively irrefutable contradicting facts, then resolve it by shutting off a major part of their brain. It's not new, but it's a more widespread & far more demented strain—something like a dehumanization reflex. The Spinal Tap Theory of Polarization: Where can you go when you're already cranked to 10? You turn to an illogical, delusional answer and believe or pretend it's real, or like my boy Nigel here, part of your brain just starts shorting out

Patel got millions in equity from this company as payment for being a “consultant,” according to his financial disclosure. Not salary, and apparently no retainer. For doing just 8 months of work. We have no idea what he did. Again, he is nominated to run the FBI.

https://twitter.com/SollenbergerRC/status/1887663061923709002

But that’s still hard to understand. Patel’s disclosure says he struck this payment agreement in November—six months *after* he started working for the company. Did he not get it in writing for millions of dollars worth of work?

Patel was actually asked about this company in his confirmation. But he evaded the question. Here’s how that went.

https://twitter.com/SollenbergerRC/status/1887663061923709002

First, the actual question Patel is asked — keep that in mind — is whether Elite Depot Ltd is a foreign investment. Patel, however — in a written reply — never answers it

NEW: Trump nominee Kash Patel disclosed he’s receiving $1 million-$5 million in shares of a Cayman Islands holding company directly tied to a Chinese corporation the Senate & a pro-Trump nonprofit accuse of “slave labor.” Patel says he won’t divest. (cont’d) Patel’s disclosure says that his shares in the company—Elite Depot Ltd—would begin vesting Feb. 1, two days after his Senate confirmation hearing, will continue to vest through November, and that he won't back out.

NEW: Krysten Sinema—who wasn't running for re-election—used her *campaign committee* to pay hotel charges in Saudi Arabia totaling more than $21,000 just before the election. One payment was $20,295 to Le Meridien Riyadh, on Oct. 17. Nine total payments docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/… Sinema also used campaign funds to pay about $2800 for private car service in Paris before the election and $1900 for private car service in London after the election

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is filing new versions of reports from her failed 2022 campaign, so far revealing close to $200,000 in debt for *donor refunds* that she owed supporters, but had never reported — and never reported refunding. Seems like she kept it Here are the debts her campaign listed on the most recently updated version of the 2022 pre-general election report — which they already corrected 6 times: docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/…

Here's the debt the campaign listed on that report today:
docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/…

I've been obsessed with a Gaetz campaign parking payment for years—$382 from his personal funds to a Pensacola airport parking garage, which the campaign reimbursed. In four years of records, the campaign had never paid for parking anywhere else, ever. We might have an answer now Gaetz's car would've been parked for about a month at the Pensacola airport. The date of his payment to the airport garage was Sept. 13, the same day Gaetz flew commercial to the Bahamas. Except Gaetz didn't fly out of Florida—he flew out of DC. So how'd he make that payment?

Nine days ago, a former Trump legal adviser created a super PAC—just in time to not be required to disclose its donors before the election. The PAC just reported TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS in spending, but we won't know who funded it until after votes are cast docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/… The full $20 million—for pro-Trump digital media, texts, & direct mail—was paid to a Wyoming company created in April, called Western Creative Group: Never been paid by a federal committee before; principals hidden behind a corporate agent; no online footprint whatsoever

The Trump campaign has also “skipped the opportunity to receive national security briefings,” per NYT — that’s while Trump is trying to convince voters he’s better equipped to handle foreign policy, terrorism, the military, and crime, and claiming we’re on the brink of WWIII

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1844105559525720372

This is apparently how Trump previously explained it to the Daily Mail — even if you take him at face value here, he’s saying he’s more concerned about media leaks/personal image than national threat assessments during what he characterizes as an epochally precarious moment

Odd new filing for June fundraising shows Trump’s “Save America” PAC—his longtime legal slush fund—had just $3M on hand, owed $1.6M in debt, and reported just $3,100 in receipts... docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/…
Save America is part of the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee that includes the campaign, the RNC, and dozens GOP state parties. That committee has raised more than $140M, and Save America is high in the fundraising waterfall—third priority, ahead of the RNC

A few weeks ago, GOP Rep. James Comer’s office told me he can’t recall using govt email as Kentucky Ag Commissioner. I’d found 2 email aliases he used, so I made an open records request for all those emails. It just came back. There are between 1,600 & 2,700 Comer alias emails. As chair of House Oversight, Comer has attacked Joe Biden for using email aliases. But I reported that Comer also used aliases as Ag Commissioner. Here’s what his spokesperson said about that thedailybeast.com/james-comer-at…

Trump-appointed FEC commissioner Allen Dickerson just proposed disclosure exemptions for campaigns, PACs, & parties who can show a "reasonable probability" that disclosure might lead to threats/harassment. The public may never know an exemption was granted fec.gov/resources/cms-…




The FEC has granted exemptions before in extreme cases, but this would create an open & streamlined approval process. SCOTUS ruled unanimously in NAACP v. Alabama that the risk of persecution justified withholding names—but again, that's the *NAACP* and *Alabama* in 1958

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.