Squirreled

Squirrel stash, North Dakota, September 2021. Photo by Bill Fischer/Facebook via Driving.

This crazy story by Roger Sollenberger in Daily Beast about one of the organs of the Trump fundraising machine goes back to early August, but it didn't seem to have any legs, and Sollenberger is now trying to push it on Twitter, which seems a little pathetic, but hear me out:

America First Policies, a nonprofit which does not have to disclose its donors, was the core of a pro-Trump dark money network, with an organizational scheme that seems confusing by design....

According to IRS records first obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, America First Policies filed to change its name to America First Works in October. But on Friday, a spokesperson for America First Works told The Daily Beast it wasn’t a name change—America First Policies had been “sold” to America First Works “in a private deal” earlier this year, he said.

“This is a different organization, under completely new ownership,” the spokesperson said. He declined to reveal the selling price.

Asked about the sale, [nonprofit law expert Lloyd] Mayer said he did not understand exactly what the spokesperson was trying to say.

“Nonprofits generally do not have owners as a matter of state law, so I am not sure what they mean by ‘sold,’” Mayer said.

What the hell is that? One thing we know is that the new America First Works (Ashley Hayek, president) is allied with another new entity, the America First Policy Institute (Ashley Hayek, "chief engagement officer"), in backing Donald Trump's class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for violating his First Amendment rights by removing misinformation related to Covid and to the election, which he filed in July. 

Wait, how does that violate Trump's First Amendment rights? I thought only the government could do that! But the suits argue that the social media companies are

arms of the federal government because they worked in cahoots with lawmakers and agencies like the CDC to formulate and enforce policies on misinformation. Their complaints claim the companies’ “status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor”...

And how are they class actions? Does Trump constitute a class? I mean, I know he does in set theory, but does he constitute a class in civil procedure? The answer to that came from The Former Guy himself:

In a rambling press conference at his New Jersey golf club, Trump claimed it would “go down as the biggest class action ever filed because thousands of people want to join.”

Apparently the theory is that more or less everybody's rights are violated when Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube refuse to run Trump's posts, because the First Amendment guarantees their right to receive misinformation from the platform of their choice?

Only—wait for it—that's not exactly happening either, because the website where the America First Policy Institute invites members of the public to sign on to the suits as co-plaintiffs didn't actually allow them to sign on as co-plaintiffs;  

visitors to that website were redirected to a fundraising page for the Constitutional Leadership Partnership, an arm of AFPI headed up by former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

On that page, visitors will find a form where they can enter their information and donate to the group, as well as this fine print: “Signing up as a supporter or donor does not make you a party to, or class member in, any lawsuit in which AFPI may or may not be engaged.”

Hi, Pam! Long time no see! It feels like I was hearing about your first Trump bribe just yesterday, and look how you've grown! (Bondi got the job

The CEO of the America First Policy Institute is Brooke Rollins, former assistant to the president for intergovernmental and technology initiatives in the White House Office for Innovation (directed by Jared Kushner) and later Acting Director for Domestic Policy in the White House, and its membership list looks pretty familiar too, including:

former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and Keith Kellogg, who was national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.

The thing that got sold, or what ever that was, America First Policies, goes back to early 2017, when it was a twin of a superPAC, America First Action, with which it shared office space and employees, and the big player in raising $200 million for Trump's something-or-other activities between 2017 and 2020, and which was also "currently in the process of winding down its affairs" in August, at the same time as America First Policies was in the process of changing its name or selling itself to owners unnamed under Ms. Hayek's direction, if I've got that right. 

The scuttlebutt then was that the retired emperor was having a fight with the chief of America First Action, Grand Duke Jared Kushner, by turning it into Make America Great Again Action, an offering to Prince Corey Lewandowski: 

disclosures show the rise of Trump’s new super PAC has been fueled in large part by the old super PAC. Of the $5 million MAGA Action raised this year, more than a third of it—about $1.79 million—came from America First Action. Both groups can raise and spend money in unlimited amounts, but can’t give directly to candidates. Other notable donors include former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who gave $250,000 at the end of June, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who contributed $100,000 in May.

According to a person with knowledge of Trump’s thinking, the pivot was connected to the Kushner rift. The shift, the person said, “is evidence of the distance Jared created between himself and Trump,” adding that Trump was “filling that gap” by “going back to the team he’s more familiar with.”

Then of course Corey Lewandowski got fired, after a round of credible sexual assault charges. and the job went to former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. Hi, Pam!

But the thing to which we obviously aren't going to get an answer—who sold the America First Policies, and what did they get for it?—remains unanswered, and as far as I know unasked. Which brings up the only interesting question, as far as I'm concerned: in the long pattern of Trump's squirreling money away, in his 500 sole-proprietorship LLCs, in the non-performing golf clubs, what role is this constant reorganization of the campaign organs doing? Is this another mechanism for him to suck money out of anybody who wants to offer it to him?

Because I'm more and more convinced that that's all he's ever doing. That's all there is in the story, if you do the narratology. That's why Sollenberger's story didn't go anywhere, in effect, because he couldn't permit himself to say so. Maybe Bannon and Giuliani and Stone really want to create a dictatorship here, but Trump's main concern is just storing it all away, whatever he can possibly acquire. And the thing Republicans most agree on seems to be helping him out.