This 'secretive' outfit has received $15m from Trump’s 'election fundraising machine': report

26 September 2024

Launchpad Strategies' website describes the outfit as "a full-service Republican digital agency run by expert strategists who have spent decades managing and advising winning campaigns." And the site lists "advertising," "online fundraising" and "voter contact" as the services it offers.

Launchpad's site doesn't offer a lot of information beyond that. But the Associated Press' Richard Lardner offers a lot more specifics in an article published on September 26, "reporting that Launchpad has "received $15 million from Donald Trump's election fundraising machine."

Noting how vague Launchpad's site is, Lardner explains, "An online contact form does not appear to work. And business registration records in Delaware provide no clues as to who owns or runs the firm. The campaign's checks are sent to a P.O. Box in North Carolina. Campaign finance experts said Launchpad Strategies was built for anonymity and is the latest example of how the Trump campaign has used secretive businesses to obscure its spending from the public."

According to Lardner, AP's review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records "shows that more than $876 million moved through Trump's campaigns and pro-Trump fundraising committees over the past nine years to six limited liability companies, including Launchpad Strategies."

This "lack of transparency," Lardner adds, "makes it impossible to know if money donated by Trump's supporters was spent wisely or could be personally benefiting the former president's aides and allies."

Michelle Kuppersmith, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability, told AP, "It's hard to know if a secretive group like Launchpad is doing anything improper, and it's unlikely that the current Republican FEC commissioners would approve an investigation to find out. By repeatedly stonewalling merited complaints, they've made it clear that they have no interest in taking a closer look at any campaign activity tied to Donald Trump."

Michael Kang, a law professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois outside Chicago, told AP, "The Trump campaigns sort of exhibit a lot of the patterns of behavior that we've become accustomed to with Trump and his associates. There does seem to be some kind of self-dealing in a lot of what they do when it comes to their financial matters."

The New York Times' full editorial is available at this link (subscription required).

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