One of Donald Trump’s most notable advisors, Jared Kushner, reportedly helped create a campaign shell company to secretly pay the president’s family.
Business Insider reports that Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, allegedly approved the creation of the shell company, which ultimately spent approximately half of the Trump campaign’s huge $1.26 billion budget. A person close to the situation has alleged that Kushner directed Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence, Trump campaign Chief Financial officer Sean Dollman, and Lara Trump to serve on the company’s board. The company was incorporated as American Made Media Consultants Corp. and American Made Media Consultants LLC. (or AMMC for short).
The creation of the shell company was supposedly to hide financial and operational details from the public, especially as the Trump campaign supposedly spent an astonishing $617 million on his reelection campaign through the company from January 2019 to November 2020. It was first formed in April 2018, and acted as a campaign within a campaign, doling out money to the president’s top advisors and Trump family members.
By setting up the shell company, the Trump campaign did not need to meet any federally mandated disclosures. To add to the situation, insiders have said that many on the Trump campaign didn’t really understand how the company functioned, and the Trump campaign leaders launched an internal audit on it, although the results of the review were never publicly revealed.
“Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place,” said Trump campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh in a statement on Friday. “John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members.”
