Trump Fundraisers Accused by Congress of Wire Fraud

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3:00Michael Popok:As part of Donald Trump's hostile takeover, full frontal assault on our nation's birthday, did his fundraisers also commit fraud by telling donors, for instance, who thought they were donating to America 250, the bipartisan committee established in 2016 by Congress, in order to celebrate today, the 250th birthday, give them wire instructions for Freedom 250, which is that parent company that is controlled by Trump that's used to spend all that money on things that have been a failure or an embarrassment. like the UFC fight at the White House or the great American state fair that's literally falling apart or all the other ways that he's hijacked it.

3:52Michael Popok:What happened to the more than$100 million that Congress allocated to America 250? It never ended up in America 250's bank account. It all apparently got diverted over to Donald Trump's Freedom 250 bank account. A Michael Popok. Great way to celebrate Fourth of July on this Fourth of July Friday. Let's get to the new report. I'm posting it on Legal AF Substack for paid members. This report is entitled From Insanity to Vanity, How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday. Now, let me read to you. You're here. Let's celebrate our version of patriotism. Become a subscriber here to Legal AF.

4:41Michael Popok:Let me read to you from certain aspects of this that I found fascinating. Besides all the money drained out of the America 250 fund, hundreds of millions of dollars, but the fact that they even went so far, which is a badge of fraud of the first order to give people wire instructions, wiring the money to the wrong account. There's a name for that in the field that I practice. It's called fraud. And they're busy. This Department of Justice is busy chasing after the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing them of not being honest with their donors about how their money was being used to infiltrate hate groups?

5:22Michael Popok:How about being honest with the donors about where their money was being spent and who was going to control it? Now, one person I wanna focus your attention on is Meredith O 'Rourke. She runs a company called Forward Strategies. She was contracted by American 250 in May of 2025 to handle fundraising for the event. She's been a longtime fundraiser for Donald Trump for all of his pet projects, the White House Ballroom, the Kennedy Center, the Garden of American Heroes, the Arch and the Rust. She seems to have been the one, along with a couple of other fundraisers like Chris LaCavita, to raise money and divert it to a bank account controlled only by Donald Trump.

6:09Michael Popok:in this was in collaboration and in cahoots with Mike Johnson of the Speaker of the House. And particularly the question is, where did the money go? More than$150 million, the report identifies, was listed in the big, beautiful bill to pay for this 250th birthday party. And yet only about 25 to 50 million of it showed up in the America 250 bank account. Why did Donald Trump want to hijack it? Because he wanted to make it a Christian nationalist event. He has not been shy about it at all. And that is how it has come out. You've got all sorts of Christian nationalist exhibits, exhibitors. I mean, if you go through the great American state fair, it's just filled with Christian nationalists attacking Democrats.

7:10Michael Popok:Is that the proper way to celebrate America? In addition, fundraisers for Donald Trump, including what appears to be the only employee of Freedom 250, a guy named Keith Crotch, or Cratch, sorry, that's the spelling of your name, went to places like Davos and Switzerland and led the effort with the State Department to try to raise money from foreign powers and foreign people to pay for Donald Trump's vision of America. How insane, unpatriotic, and likely illegal is that? you know all of this use of freedom 250 that's how we got the UFC fight that's how we're getting this you know this performance tonight with a whole bunch of over the hill sorry e-listers and g-listers who you haven't heard from in Patti LaBelle you haven't heard from in like 40 years taking the stage and speaking of that stage I don't know where all the money's going there There should be an accounting of where all this taxpayer dollars went that has been hijacked by Freedom 250 because things are falling down from the stage.

8:23Michael Popok:It could have hit somebody. We got video from one of our contributors on Midas, Aaron Pardis, who lives in Washington, who happened to be there at the moment the thing fell. And, you know, he spends money, our money, to put up his arc to triumph or arc to Trump papier-mâché model of it. And it's fallen down. We got video of that as well. Everything Donald Trump, Bob the Builder president touches, turns to crap, turns to shit. See the reflecting pool turning Iranian algae green. The report, which goes on for 30 or 40 pages, single spaced, details all of the different people that were involved in this scheme.

9:10Michael Popok:But I thought the thing that was the most pertinent from my analysis was the fraud committed, as alleged, by the members of the committee of the fundraising lying to the American people in all of it. They say in the findings on So page 38, finding number two, the president's senior campaign operatives, Meredith O 'Rourke, Chris LaCavita, Justin Corporal, and Brad Parscale played key roles in sidelining America 250 and engineering Freedom 250. It was built on deceit. Finding number three, page 39. Freedom 250 was sold to the public as an addition to the congressionally chartered commission rather than a replacement for it.

10:04Michael Popok:Its own talking points insist that the two play distinct but complementary roles, but donors who intended to support America 250 were misled and apparently provided with Freedom 250's banking information, meaning contributions solicited in the name of the nation's nonpartisan birthday foundation, were routed to President Trump's substitute entity. Finding four under a veil of secrecy, Freedom 250 sold access to the president, solicited foreign money in America's name, and enabled the president to enrich himself. Got a president who just revealed that while other people in the Bitcoin business and cryptocurrency business lost hundreds of millions of dollars, he made$1.7 billion.

10:51Michael Popok:dollars. Freedom Finding 5, Freedom 250 is a replicable blueprint for corruption. In other words, he will do it again based on what we just watched. And the Congress is having difficulty providing oversight over it. I think that means there's going to have to be oversight hearings about Freedom 250 that are going to go on when the Congress returns by the Democrats and beyond at the midterms. You know, this, you know, shout out and credit. I'll try to get somebody from this committee to join us and give us the lowdown, the personal briefing. But shout out to the group here who put this all together from the National Resource Committee and the Democrats.

11:36Michael Popok:I've been talking about not allowing Donald Trump to hijack our America 250 converted into Freedom 250. Don't let him kidnap the Statue of Liberty and try to force down our throat a Christian nationalist branded view with Donald Trump at the center of it as the God or deity version of our 4th of July celebration. We just can't allow it. I won't allow it. I know you won't either. One way to counter-program, and I got some great counter-programming going on tomorrow, is to hit the free subscribe button here. Now tomorrow, you're going to want to be here. I think our third video, we got two fresh videos in the morning, and our third video is going to be a group of community organizers, labor organizers, and movement organizers who all have come together to have a conversation with America, you know, in particular.

12:36Michael Popok:Listen to this lineup. You've got, led by Representative Mejia of New Jersey, you've got Ashley Woodard Henderson, She of No Kings and the Movement for Black Lives, Maurice Mitchell, National Director, Working Families Party. you've got Linda Sarsour of The Next 250, Angela Rye, Freedom Summer, Justin Krebs of Rise Up and the Sing Out Concerts and No Kings, and the actress Peppermint who supports the committee for the First Amendment. In an hour-long conversation dialogue about what this looks like and what it should look like America over the next, forget 250, how about the next two years and beyond.

13:23Michael Popok:You're not going to want to miss it. That's our counter-programming for our 4th of July tomorrow. But in the meantime, I'm Michael Popok. More videos today, more analysis today. I'm glad you're here. Hit the free subscribe button. Until my next report, this is Michael. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument. Come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF.

13:57Michael Popok:What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.