Almost two years ago, as President Trump stood on the threshold of securing the Republican nomination, he stumbled into a nuisance level scandal over hard sell email money solicitations to parliamentarians in countries from Australia and the UK to Iceland and Denmark. The inboxes of elected officials from various countries around the world were stuffed with requests for money and promises to jail “Crooked Hillary”, Make America Great Again and more.
But apparently Trump never stopped.
I checked in with one Australian parliamentarian who tells me the emails from Trump asking for money really never stopped and he still gets at least a few a week. This member of the Australian parliament told me he’d received this one just in the last 24 hours.
It is of course illegal to solicit campaign contributions from foreign nationals, though Trump’s defenders would point out that it would have to be shown he was intentionally doing so as opposed to just using Trump Organization email lists that have emails from many non-Americans. To be sure, Trump was soliciting money from countries that are majority or at least historically white. But still, they were not Americans. And this was before we even know about his side racket with Russia.
But did Trump ever stop using his foreign email lists or try to clean his general lists? It doesn’t seem like it. To be clear, these emails are not going to somedudeinaustralia@gmail.com. They’re going to the official parliamentary email list of a sitting member of parliament. They’re readily identifiable.
Are you an elected official in a country other than the United States? Is our President asking you for money? If so, please let us know!