The estate of Claude Rains should get residuals every time we are “shocked, shocked” again at how not shocked we are:
The Trump Organization never consummated the deal reported by BuzzFeed News, but with Trump still in office, the discussions alone “raise legal concerns with regards to anti-bribery laws,” the site reports:
Talks between members of Trump’s campaign and Parler about Trump’s potential involvement began last summer, and were revisited in November by the Trump Organization after Trump lost the 2020 election to the Democratic nominee and current president, Joe Biden. Documents seen by BuzzFeed News show that Parler offered the Trump Organization a 40% stake in the company. It is unclear as to what extent the former president was involved with the discussions.
Does Trump ever not involve himself in any family business deals?
And no one needs reminding that Trump did not get the boot from Twitter and Facebook until after the Jan. 6 insurrection, months after these negotiations began.
Parler shareholderJeffrey Wernick claims inaccuracies in BuzzFeed’s reporting, “but did not provide specifics on what, if anything, was inaccurate.”
Four sources told BuzzFeed News that [former Trump campaign manager Brad] Parscale and Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon met with Parler CEO John Matze and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago in June 2020 to discuss the idea. But the White House counsel’s office soon put a stop to the talks, one person with knowledge of the discussions said, ruling that such a deal while Trump was president would violate ethics rules.
“The president was never part of the discussions,” Parscale told BuzzFeed News. “The discussions were never that substantive. And this was just one of many things the campaign was looking into to deal with the cancel culture of Silicon Valley.”
Uh-huh.
UPDATE: Too good not to add.