Trump’s Failing Media Company Desperately Scrambles to Find Scapegoat

Donald Trump’s social media company has lost so much money that the CEO is asking Congress to look into what might be causing it. 

Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman himself, wrote a letter to several committees in the House of Representatives asking them to “open an investigation of anomalous trading of DJT,” CBS News reported Wednesday. $DJT is the stock symbol for Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social.  

Nunes’s letter, dated Tuesday, was sent to the House Judiciary, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Oversight Committees, all of which are chaired by major Trump allies. The request comes after Nunes complained in—and was mercilessly mocked for—a different letter to NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman last week about “naked short selling,” an illegal technique used to try to benefit from an asset declining in value. 

In normal short selling, which is legal, traders borrow stock shares before selling them, hoping to profit later by buying back the stock at a lower price. Naked short selling differs in that a trader doesn’t keep their promise to borrow, dealing a severe blow to a company’s stock price.

In the letter to NASDAQ, Nunes asked Friedman to make sure trading firms disclose whether they are short selling the company’s stock. It was met with scorn on Wall Street, particularly from Citadel Securities, which released a statement mocking the former president and his media venture.  

As of Wednesday, TMTG stock was trading at $35 a share, half of its peak price after the company’s initial public offering in March. Since its stock market debut, the company has suffered a series of setbacks, from SEC filings showing staggering losses to two of its investors being indicted for insider trading. The company’s total losses are said to be at least $2 billion. 

It’s ironic that a Trump-controlled business would seek help from the U.S. government, when Trump himself is in legal trouble for his business practices, and also faces federal charges in Florida and Washington, D.C. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is probably the only Trump-friendly federal government body where he could seek help, as pro-MAGA politicians seemingly have no qualms with publicly offering their services.

A Michigan state investigator revealed in court Wednesday that Donald Trump, his former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and his former attorney Rudy Giuliani are considered unindicted co-conspirators in the state’s case against fake electors in the 2020 presidential election.

Howard Shock, a special agent for the Michigan attorney general’s office, revealed the names during a preliminary hearing for the case, in response to a question from an attorney for one of the 15 fake electors on trial, ABC News reported.

In January, internal Trump campaign emails obtained by The Detroit News showed that the former president’s campaign team was directly involved in the fake elector scheme to falsely claim Trump won Michigan during the 2020 election. They actively organized the plot, setting up a Michigan Republican Party meeting and even trying to mail a document falsely certifying that Trump won the state to Vice President Mike Pence and the National Archives.

One Trump campaign employee even tried to start a riot where ballots were being counted in Detroit after it became clear that Trump would lose the state.

Last year, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 Republicans with forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery for attempting to overturn the state’s vote from Joe Biden to Trump . One fake elector had their charges dismissed after agreeing to cooperate with the state, and the other 15 have pleaded not guilty.

Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia have all charged fake electors for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, with Arizona close to filing charges. Fake electors in Wisconsin have settled a civil lawsuit over their fraudulent efforts. In Fulton County, Georgia, Trump directly faces charges for trying to overturn the state election results.

Donald Trump is in the tank for 91 criminal charges and four criminal trials—but how he’s paying for all his legal counsel could also be putting him into some murky water.

Trump’s various political committees, including his presidential campaign, have been making upwards of $8 million in payments to a Republican compliance firm known as Red Curve Solutions for the last 15 months, according to a review of FEC filings by The Daily Beast. That sum makes Red Curve the highest paid legal counsel on Trump’s staff—higher than ardent and highly visible defenders such as Alina Habba and John Lauro—even though the self-described accounting group has never provided him legal aid.

Instead, the payments have been earmarked in FEC filings as “reimbursements,” making Red Curve a financial intermediary between Trump’s various political entities while skirting federal regulations on candidate disclosures.

“This appears illegal for two reasons,” Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance specialist, told the Beast.

“When a campaign makes a reimbursement, it must report the payment to the person being reimbursed, and also itemize the underlying vendor,” Fischer told the outlet, explaining that the reimbursements don’t provide any of the required itemization. “The second is that these transactions may have resulted in Red Curve making illegal corporate contributions to Trump’s committees.”

Red Curve’s status as a corporation also legally limits their ability to provide monetary advances to Trump’s financial committees, even if he repays the funds later, according to Fischer.

And the arrangement is still ongoing. Filings indicate that nearly $900,000 of Trump’s legal expenses this year have gone through Red Curve, with $300,000 reimbursed just last month.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s futile fight to stop aid to Ukraine, and her weak attempt to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, has not endeared her to fellow Republicans in Congress, who now worry about the damage she’s doing to the wider party.

The latest Republican to complain is Senator Thom Tillis, who called out Greene for being a “total waste of time” and “dragging our brand down,” in a recording reported by CNN Tuesday night.

“She — not the Democrats — are the biggest risk to us getting back to a majority,” the North Carolina senator added.

Greene has already lost support from right-wing media and earned the derisive nickname “Moscow Marjorie” for her pro-Russia stances. Despite losing her bid to stop Ukraine aid from passing in Congress, the far-right congresswoman still refuses to abandon her efforts to push out Johnson, which could throw the House in further chaos in a critical election year

Tilis narrowly won his reelection race in 2020 in North Carolina, and is probably worried about how other swing state Republicans will fare this November. Tillis has been a strong critic of Russia and supporter of Ukraine aid, and has little patience for Putin apologists.

The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in United States v. Idaho Wednesday—and it was not smooth sailing for the Gem State and its abortion ban.

At the crux of the case is whether pregnant people in Idaho will be allowed to get abortions when receiving lifesaving, critical care at hospitals and emergency rooms, or if they and their fetus will be considered two separate people, with the potential for the viability of the fetus to take a healthcare precedent.

But on Wednesday morning, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was already openly questioning why the nation’s highest court was even hearing the case if the state was, as Idaho Attorney General’s Office’s defense attorney Josh Turner claimed, in complete compliance with EMTALA, a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide care to any individuals who show up.

But Turner’s claim completely fails to acknowledge the practical realities of medical care within the state, where politicians have made abortion care a felony and outright criminalizing the act even if it could save a pregnant person’s life—as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar reminded the court.

According to Turner, there would need to be a “clear statement” in EMTALA that clarifies Congress explicitly demands doctors perform abortions.

Idaho already has a near-total abortion ban, but the Alliance Defending Freedom, the far-right Christian legal advocacy group arguing the lawsuit on behalf of the state, is utilizing the case to advance the idea of fetal personhood. This stipulation would effectively require doctors to treat fetuses—no matter how underdeveloped—with the same medical care as the person carrying it, even if it poses a medical risk to the pregnant patient.

Fetal personhood was a heavy topic of interest in Wednesday’s hearing, with Prelogar entering into a heated back-and-forth with Justice Samuel Alito over the issue, reminding the conservative judge that “a woman is an individual.” That made Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, scoff that nobody had suggested they weren’t, reported Rewire News Group’s Jessica Mason Pieklo.

But Prelogar shot one back: actually, Idaho is.

Pro-abortion activists have long warned that providing equal human rights to a fetus—especially if it’s a cluster of cells—will effectively strip pregnant people of their own rights. The notion of fetal personhood has also been leveraged elsewhere in the country to restrict IVF access in states such as Alabama and limit access to forms of birth control.

“Thirteen of Idaho’s 44 counties are already maternity care deserts. Emergency rooms then become frontline care. The Idaho ban’s severe limitation on treatment options will only result in increasing Idaho’s already unacceptable maternity mortality and morbidity rates,” warned the board chair of Physicians for Human Rights, Gerson H. Smoger, ahead of Wednesday’s hearing.