Before joining Raw Story, Brad Reed spent eight years writing about technology at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.
What's the best way to fund your sex addiction in a way that no one will suspect? There aren't a lot of better ways than setting up a Christian charity and embezzling the money. The Associated Press, via The News & Observer, reports that Cedar Rapids, Iowa resident Jon S. Petersen has pleaded guilty to moving $475,000 worth of donations from his Christian nonprofit organization to his personal account to pay for his apparently expensive sex habits.
The 55-year-old Petersen is the president and co-founder of World Ambassadors, Ltd., a group that specializes in offering Christian outreach to international students on college campuses. The AP says that the key piece of evidence against him revolved around "his personal 2013 tax filing, when he failed to report $114,000 diverted from the group as taxable income."
Unfortunately, the prosecutors in the case didn't go into any detail about just what Petersen bought with the $475,000 he swiped from his own charity, so it will have to be left up to the imagination for the time being. But there's no doubt that Petersen's sex addiction was a very expensive habit as prosecutors say he not only used embezzled charity funds to pay for it, but also credit card debt and home equity lines of credit.
There's something rotten in MAGA country: some supporters are being scammed into donating funds beyond a one-time offering to bankroll former President Donald Trump's legal efforts.
Tim Miller, the former communications director for the Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign, appeared on MSNBC's "Alex Wagner Tonight" to suggest that some of these fervent backers of MAGA being suckered could help Democrats make their case in the upcoming election.
"They are making one donation and actually they are having a monthly withdrawal taken from their accounts," he said. "This has been happening over and over again so you know there are plenty of these supporters that are getting scammed and I think that this is potentially a useful political issue for Democrats, frankly, because it undermines a core message of Donald Trump that he cares about these people."
Miller appears to be touching on a 2021 story in The New York Times exposing a so-called "money bomb" to squeeze out more money from an unsuspecting loyalists' contributions
The story suggested those taken sometimes for "thousands of dollars" in the maneuver were "retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives."
Ever since fleeing the White House for Mar-a-Lago in 2021 after suffering a defeat by President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump has burned through $100 million on lawyers and residual costs dealing with his many investigations, indictments and both civil and criminal trials, according to The Times.
The Times found that Trump "has relied almost entirely on donations made in an attempt to fight the results of the 2020 election."
Miller noted that these supporters may be fine with backing his legal defense efforts, keep his jet fueled, or float his "fancy dinners at Mar-a-Lago."
He said, "they don't care because it's their way to give the middle finger to the people they don't like."
But there are others who are sore about it.
These "other people" Miller contends that are "donating really believed that that money was going to an election defense fund, that there was fraud in the election, that literally believe that the country is under threat; it's under some invasion and the little $10 donation they give is part of the effort to stop that vision and to support candidates that are going to put in policies that they care about."
He suggested this pool often are elderly with less internet savviness "who are literally getting conned."
A judge recommending disbarment for a Trump-aligned attorney who allegedly participated in 2020 election subversion efforts included one line in the ruling that stood out to political and legal experts.
JustSecurity reporter Adam Klasfeld highlighted the line from the disbarment recommendation filing for John Eastman. Eastman was indicted alongside former president Donald Trump for his alleged role in a scheme to overturn the results of Georgia's presidential election in 2020.
"A blistering line from John Eastman's disbarment recommendation: The Bar finds that the 'scale and egregiousness' of Eastman’s 'unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct' by Nixon henchman Donald Segretti, who coined the word 'ratf------' for political dirty tricks," Klasfeld wrote on his social media.
In a follow-up post, Klasfeld said, "Unlike Segretti, who served jail time after pleading guilty to Watergate-related misdemeanors, Eastman refuses to admit wrongdoing, the order states."
The order further says:
"This is an important factor, as it constitutes a fundamental breach of an attorney's core ethical duties."
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said on Wednesday, "Clear and convincing evidence of engaging in election fraud... and, yes, worse than Watergate."
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling network of ostensibly independent political groups raising money for him, much of it in service of paying legal expenses, seems to walk right up to the line of breaking the law, former prosecutor Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC's Alex Wagner — and may in fact cross it.
"Kristy, how is this legal?" asked Wagner. "How can he keep saying this one thing and doing another?"
"Well, I think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating it," said Greenberg. "If Donald Trump is coordinating between his campaign and these PACs that are supposed to be third parties and independent — the Save America PAC is independent, even though he directs it, independent third-party — if there is sufficient coordination, you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say these expenditures are not purely personal, these are really campaign contributions. And therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5,000 that campaign contributions are subject to."
What it looks like, Greenberg went on, is that Trump and his allies are "just trying to do an end-run around these various regulations, and it seems so transparent."
"[Special counsel] Jack Smith ... had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out, election defense fund," Greenberg said. "He served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why, because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. I questioned why that happened. Perhaps it was optics. Perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the January 6 case and the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain Trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. Hard to say. But I questioned it at that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into, but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it."
"But I agree with you, this raises a lot of questions," she added. "Someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy — some prosecutors should be looking into this."