Trump Leans On Creative Bookkeeping to Keep Pace

“Donald Trump’s political operation has been taking extraordinary measures in a bid to stay financially competitive with Vice President Kamala Harris, deploying aggressive and creative accounting strategies that test the legal limits of how far a candidate can go to offload the core costs of running for president,” the New York Times reports.

“The most startling example is the official payroll of the former president’s campaign committee. He had only 11 people on it, as of August.”

“That is a tiny fraction of the more than 200 people Mr. Trump had on his campaign payroll four years ago and the more than 600 people on Ms. Harris’s campaign payroll in August, federal records show.”

“The reason Mr. Trump now has so few on the payroll is that he is shuffling costs from his campaign committee to other accounts allied or shared with the Republican Party. The goal of the seemingly arcane accounting maneuver is to free up millions of dollars, which would otherwise be locked up in party and fund-raising accounts, to spend on television ads for Mr. Trump.”