Trump Accused of Soliciting a Bribe!
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The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a criminal bribery complaint urging the Justice Department to investigate former President Trump’s solicitation of campaign donations from fossil fuel executives.
The former president met with oil industry executives in April and asked for $1 billion in campaign contributions, The Hill reported last month.
The Washington Post, which first reported the request, also reported that the former president described the donations as a “deal” and said that in a second term, Trump would unwind Biden administration regulations on industry.
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This is not the first time that Trump's views have shifted for money..
Crypto
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“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” he said in a series of social media posts in 2019 while he was still in office. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
“We have only one real currency in the USA,” Trump continued, “And it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!”
Trump maintained that position after he left the office and as recently as 2021, when he told Fox Business in one interview that bitcoin “just seems like a scam.” In another interview with the network, he said cryptocurrencies seemed like a “disaster waiting to happen.”
“I don’t think we should have all of the bitcoins of the world out there. I think they should regulate them very, very high,” Trump told Fox Business in August 2021.
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In a sharp reversal, former President Donald Trump has embraced the cryptocurrencies he once reviled, looking to outflank rivals Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. among the technology’s devoted young fan base — and its deep-pocketed executives.
Hours after meeting with bitcoin miners at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday, the former president said on his Truth Social media platform that cryptocurrency users should “vote for Trump!” because he will stand up to “Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin.”
TikTok
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Yass, who lent his Republican primary campaign support to Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Tim Scott over Trump, reportedly met the former president at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, before Trump spoke against the TikTok ban working its way through Congress.
Media reports from Politico, NBC News and others have noted the support of Yass, who had donated $46.4 million to outside groups in the 2024 election through the end of 2023, could be a major boon for a Trump campaign that's struggling with cash needs.
Yass has made donations to conservative politicians who stand against the TikTok ban—including $24 million to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and $32,200 to Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who also received $192,000 from the Club for Growth, according to the Wall Street Journal—and has reportedly threatened to stop donating to members of Congress who support the ban.
Commentators on both sides of the aisle have criticized Trump for possibly switching sides for a big donor, especially since he's facing a serious cash problem. Conservative columnist David French wrote in the New York Times the change of heart over the TikTok ban "indicates that Trump's positions may well be for sale, even when they threaten national security." Chris Hayes, the liberal host on MSNBC, said: "You don't have to be a genius to put two and two together here. Yass visits, Trump announces he now opposes the ban." Steve Bannon, a far-right former White House strategist under Trump, posted to social media a link to an article on Trump's change in position with the commentary, "Simple: Yass Coin." New York magazine's liberal political columnist Jonathan Chait wrote it would be "hardly unprecedented" for Trump to "leap to the defense of the Chinese Communist Party" to gain political favor.
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