"Money laundering is a financial transaction where criminals try to hide the source, nature, or proceeds of their illegal activities. This process is also known as converting "dirty money" into "clean money". Money laundering can lead to serious criminal offenses and threaten the integrity of the financial system. "

Idk. It kinda works in this case. The money would be illegally gotten if coming as donations from churches. But because churches have a legitimate reason to want to buy bulk bibles, this "hides" the illegality of the activity. So maybe not true textbook definition, but the spirit is there for sure.

[–] jeremyparker@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's not illegal to sell bibles. I'm sure there are loads of churches that will fill their pews with them, but they're not sending money to the campaign, they're sending it to Trump. Why would he make this harder for himself, he can just take the money and put it in his pocket, there's no reason to get the campaign involved.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

After reading a bit more you find this.

The Bible’s website states the product “is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”

“GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates,” it says.

Instead, it says, “GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

While the internal logic of the original post makes sense if you know nothing but the headline, this really is just more grift. It's like he's not even trying to campaign.

[–] WiseThat@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The problem is that's literally just money laundering?

They are using a shell corporation and bullshit liscencing fee to cover over the fact that this transaction is and should be illegal.

Like, the idea here is that the church is not allowed to donate to a political figure, so they've set up a shell corp in the middle. The church pays $60 to the shell corp, who sends back 30 cents worth of paper, and then passes on 59.70 to Trump as a "licencing fee", which is obviously just going to be spent on his campaign.

[–] jeremyparker@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

The Bibles have nothing to do with his campaign. In the context of the Bibles, he's just a dude selling bibles, he's not a representative of his campaign, the money isn't going to his campaign, and it's not being spent on his campaign.

To be specific, there's no law against a church giving money to a political figure; there are laws against donations to political causes -- and political campaigns are political causes. Trump the person can sell whatever he wants and use that money however he wants, or, in this case, license his name to whatever, etc.

There's no reason a person can't pay for their own campaign, and there's no reason someone with more money than sense can't just give another person free money with no strings. We don't tend to this because we don't tend to have candidates that could believably get money from people for reasons unrelated to their campaign -- with any career politician, it would be a transparent pretense. But not with Trump, he legitimately can get people to buy whatever, because it's him they like, not just him-as-president. The shoes, the Bible, the steaks -- they're proof of that fact.

The money he's getting from the Bibles is not political money and he's not spending it on his campaign. There's just no there there.

Trump's debts are not "political," especially the fraud verdict (the $400m one) which is his biggest problem rn. There's no reason a person can't sell a Bible and use it to pay for the judgement against him for fraud. Like, that's a weird sentence, but it's true.

His campaign is definitely short on money, but, financially, his main concern right now is the fraud judgement, and after that the rape/defamation judgement, then maybe the lawyers next? Tho he probably doesn't plan on paying them. So, yeah, Trump's going to need some money for his campaign, but he needs to keep the Trump in Trump Tower or he's completely fucked -- legally, financially, and even politically.

Look, I hate him too, but this is just not money laundering.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

This makes sense to me. Clearly it can lead to money laundering and it would be hard to prove otherwise.

[–] jeremyparker@programming.dev 9 points 7 months ago

For real. Trump is an idiot, a grifter, and a piece of shit, but this isn't even sidestepping campaign donation law.

He's not a political candidate getting funds from churches, he's a parasite capitalist selling bibles to his fans, and he's a political candidate -- 2 separate things. The bible money isn't going to his campaign, it's just going to his pocket.

This take assumes that he's selling bibles, funneling the money from their sales to his campaign, then funneling it back out to pay for his disgorgements. This take thinks he's intentionally making is harder for himself, just to make it illegal.

He's just a guy selling shit.