In the weeks before his inauguration, top officials on President Trump’s inaugural committee repeatedly sounded alarms about the budgets submitted by several vendors.
Feeding the Trump Swamp including the Trump’s with a $104 million in private donations from corporations and Republican elite in 72 days. Open Secrets has a list of Trump’s donors.
Trump’s Inaugural committee budget director Heather Martin told vendors they were overcharging.
Deputy Chairman Rick Gates: pay them - Yes, the same Rick Gates convicted by Mueller #RussiaGate and who testified against Paul Manafort.
Chairman Tom Barrack: pay them
Ivanka: it’s for us ... Trump Organization
NOT mentioned: Federal prosecutors are also investigating foreign donations from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russian Oligarchs. Foreign donations are illegal.
Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee raised a record $107 million in donations, twice what was raised for former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural in 2009. The committee says it spent $104 million on the inauguration.
Some of the materials, which haven’t previously been reported, have been shared with federal prosecutors in New York, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Federal prosecutors are probing the committee’s dealings with vendors as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the 2017 inaugural committee, according to a subpoena the committee received earlier this month and people familiar with the investigation. Among other matters, prosecutors are interested in whether any vendors were paid off the books, the people familiar with the investigation said.
Trump’s Inauguration Paid Trump’s Company — With Ivanka in the Middle, ProPublica - Dec. 2018
ProPublica published emails between Ivanka, Rick Gates and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff #ButHerEmails
Ivanka charging “above-market rates” is a CRIME
Melania and Friends
Less than a month before the inauguration, in an email to colleagues, Heather Martin, the committee’s budget director, questioned the budget submitted by a top vendor, event-production company Hargrove Inc. The company, she wrote, was using “wildly different pricing” from its work on previous inaugurals. She noted “redundancy” and “excessively high” prices for labor, centerpieces and even bike racks.
It was one of several vendor budgets—including one submitted by WIS Media Partners, a firm run by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to first lady Melania Trump—that was questioned by inaugural organizers, according to the records reviewed by the Journal.
Hargrove provided explanations for why the pricing was different before the committee went forward with their contract, people familiar with the planning said. The company was ultimately paid $25 million, according to the committee’s tax filings.
Mr. Facebook Brad Parscale and Inaugural #CrowdSize
A firm owned by Brad Parscale, the campaign’s digital media director who is now Mr. Trump’s campaign manager for 2020, was paid nearly $2.7 million, including $2.1 million for a digital media buy focused on drawing crowds to the inauguration, according to people familiar with the matter.
😂 Trump paid Brad Parscale for this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
