With Roger Sollenberger, Political Reporter

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The Big Dig this week… The True Story of the Fake’ Trump Legal Fund Playing Both Sides and Duping Everyone

Donald Trump’s grifting appears to know no bounds. But now, an apparent Trump critic has charted new territory, turning Trump’s grift into their own—and duping national media organizations in the process.

A website purporting to associate itself with Trump’s “Patriot Legal Defense Fund” is now being denounced as “fake,” as it appears to be trying to swindle Trump supporters into lining the pockets of an anti-Trump scammer.

And while the identity of the site’s owner is still unknown, it’s clear the person is no fan of the former president.

Takes one to know one

Over the last few weeks, the page—patriotlegaldefensefund.com—has expressed contradictory views of Trump so stark that major publications, including the tech-savvy site Gizmodo, attributed the work to hackers.

A person with direct knowledge of the real Patriot Legal Defense Fund, however, told The Daily Beast that it wasn’t hackers—there is no official website, and never has been.

“It’s a fake site selling fake merch,” this person said. “The legal fund does not have a website nor do we sell merch.”

That publicity, however, appears to have given the site’s owner an idea: Make it appear the legal fund regained control, and take money from Trump supporters.

Under the influence

Today, the fake site is selling pro-Trump merch. And it is not directing donors to Trump’s real fund, which campaign aides set up last month to help take the sting out of legal fees incurred by his alleged co-conspirators, allies, and various witnesses. While today those sales appears to be the page’s only purpose, it had a markedly different tone just weeks ago, when it implored users, “DO NOT SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP’S FRAUDULENT PATRIOT LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.”

While some people may find it difficult to cry too hard for Trump—who has run a mind-boggling array of grifts over the years, and is reportedly leaving some of his Georgia co-defendants to fend for themselves despite the new fund—the fake website has already claimed its share of innocent bystanders, including a number of media outlets, and it appears to be doing the very thing it once deplored: Stiffing unwitting Trump supporters by lying to their faces. 

In that sense, the page appears authentically Trump, by its own definition, and only perpetuating the cycle of scams.

Cheap shot

In its current form, the page is a full-on Trump swag shop, hawking an array of unauthorized shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers—almost all of which feature Trump’s visage as the Fulton County sheriff captured it last month. Almost all of the mugshot items for sale include the phrase “Never surrender,” after Trump was widely mocked for tweeting that phrase alongside his mugshot, which was taken precisely because he had surrendered himself at the courthouse. (Legal experts now question whether even Trump has the rights to raise money off his mugshot.)

The links on the items bring users to a page where they can enter their personal and financial information. But one detail about those payment forms stands out and gives away the game: They don’t include the disclaimers legally required of federally registered political fundraising groups like the real PLDF.

Domain tools

The fake site was first registered on July 30, according to public data, through a private domain service. That was the same day The New York Times first publicly reported the launch of the new fund, which itself was created in Virginia on July 18 and filed with the IRS the next day. This chain of events would have given the entity behind the fake website enough time to create the first, bare-bones version.

But the real giveaway is what the site looked like when it was captured on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25. On both days, the site featured the anti-Trump “America is already great!” banner alongside the original text asking to support Trump, which was at some point reinserted. By Sept. 1, however, the site had made the full pivot and was slinging the unauthorized merch.

And here, the site and Trump appear to have something in common. As legal experts have noted, neither entity appears to have the rights to use the mugshot; that copyright, those experts said, belongs to the Fulton County sheriff. Those fake T-shirt and mug sales, therefore, may end up funding a legal defense after all—just not Trump’s.

Read the full story here.

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From Roger’s Notebook...

That was quick. Thursday morning, hours after The Daily Beast published the report about the fake legal defense fund site, someone registered a super PAC under the name “Patriot Legal Defense Fund.” While the Federal Election Commission appears to have already deleted the group—which a person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast was unauthorized—the filing listed a treasurer by the name of Mike Hnatusko. Reached by phone, Hnatusko denied creating the website and hung up.

Not so great, Daines. The FEC last week published some eye-popping findings from a preliminary audit of the 2020 campaign committee for Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). FEC auditors recommended that the Commission find that the campaign committed an array of violations, including receiving nearly $500,000 in excessive individual contributions, failing to disclose about $375,000 in debts and obligations, and incorrectly reporting about $1.5 million in receipts.

The report included protests from the Daines campaign, which objected to the audit’s use of statistical sampling as being too broad to derive accurate projections. However, the auditors—as well as the FEC’s Office of General Counsel—pointed out in the report that the FEC has approved statistical sampling in these kinds of audits for over 30 years, noting that the auditors notified the campaign about the possible use of sampling as early as April 2021.

Wheeler dealer. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) raised eyebrows again this week, when a pair of court filings suggested that he and his former campaign fundraiser may both be in the market for plea deals with federal prosecutors. In one filing on Wednesday, prosecutors asked a federal judge for additional time in their case against indicted former Santos campaign fundraiser Sam Miele, saying the cushion would “accommodate ongoing discovery review and plea negotiations” that have been active since Miele was arrested last month for wire fraud and identity theft. On the same day, prosecutors and defense counsel for Santos also both asked to push his scheduled Thursday status conference back to late October, citing in part discussions for “possible paths forward” in the case.

Santos, a serial fabulist, has denied cooperating with the DOJ, calling the suggestion “wildly inaccurate.” On Wednesday, he tweeted out a context-free definition of “speculation,” as “The forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.” A closed-quote Google search of the phrase does not return any reputable hits, but shows that specific definition in wide use on informal resources, such as prep course study guides.

Settling up. Indicted telemarketing and scam PAC kingpin Richard Zeitlin has agreed to settle a multimillion-dollar civil suit, according to a federal court filing submitted last Friday. The suit, which was filed in 2021 in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, accused Zeitlin—who appears in the new HBO investigative docuseries “Telemarketers”—of using his call center network to scam millions of dollars from unwitting donors through fake PACs styled as charities. While the settlement amount is unknown, the move comes at a conspicuous time, just weeks after the feds charged Zeitlin with wire fraud and obstruction of justice related to the PAC scheme.

MAG-UH? The FEC wants to know why the pro-Trump “Make America Great Again, Again!” super PAC just disclosed $150,000 in previously unreported expenses in a disclosure from early 2022. In a letter on Monday, the agency asked for more clarity about the new costs, all of which were in-kind contributions of private flights that appeared among a batch of amended reports filed in July.

A comparison of the original and amended filings shows the new costs included $13,500 paid by Ohio builder John Cafaro, $57,000 paid by Robert Wood Johnson, IV, $16,900 from the Witkoff Group, and $63,900 from disgraced former casino magnate Steve Wynn.

More From The Beast’s Politics Desk

A new “bridge to nowhere” fight has been brewing on the Alabama coast, and the stakes are $120 million. Check out Sam Brodey with the inside lane on the insane feud.

Matt Schlapp once held an exorcism at CPAC offices, to cleanse the premises of the evil spirits left behind by… a group of employees who complained that he was underpaying them. ICYMI, I’ve got the exclusive right here.

The Ron DeSantis campaign has gone to extraordinary lengths to intimidate a high school sophomore—all because the 15-year-old budding reporter asked him a question about Donald Trump’s attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Jake LaHut has been on top of this story for months, and he delivered this wild update last week.

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