Post Jr/Russia meeting, Trump's data funding increased 60%

[rainbow4321]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-data-skeptic-spending-millions-data/



Yet Trump elevated Parscale to digital director June 21, and Parscale recently began working mostly from Trump Tower in New York. He sits next to Steve Bannon, chief executive officer of the Trump campaign and the former head of Breitbart News.

(Snip)

His campaign spent $11 million — almost one-third of its budget — on Parscale’s firm Giles-Parscale in August, a 60 percent leap from its July payments. The Texas firm has dozens of employees working to produce and disseminate Trump content and purchases all of Trump’s digital ads, in addition to handling online fundraising.

(Snip)

In August and July, the campaign paid Cambridge Analytica $350,000 for data. The firm, funded in part by Trump supporter and billionaire financier Robert Mercer, pairs its vault of consumer data with voter information.

[leftstreet]

1. DURec

Interesting article!

Thanks for posting

[rainbow4321]

2. You're welcome...

Parscale is supposed to go before the committee later this month. Hope he brings his financial logs.

And..wow..he moved into Trump Tower 2 weeks after the meeting, at a desk next to Bannon, newly armed with a 60% budget increase.

[Scarsdale]

5. Next to Bannon?

Sure hope he brought air spray along. Bannon looks as though he is allergic to soap, water and shampoo.

[Squinch]

3. Wow. This is a big deal. And they'll tell us it was a coincidence.

[bitterross]

4. It seems like a big deal, let's be sure though - How does it compare?

I agree this seems like a big deal and points toward collusion. Let's be certain though. Hoes does his campaign's spending in this area compare with that of other campaigns? With Clinton's or previous Presidential campaigns?

I want to use this fact but I don't want to open myself up, or others, to the counter-claim that it is not out of the ordinary for a campaign to spend a third of its budget on data so this is more fake news. The article does say this is a shift from Trump being data-adverse and there is this paragraph:

“The Trump campaign could say they are doing the best, hugest, most amazing data campaign in the history of mankind, but they’re still not on par with Clinton,” said Chris Wilson, who was director of research, analytics and digital strategy for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. “Anything they are doing now is like sticking a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.”


Sounds like they were way behind and began catching up. Sure, I believe the meeting was a proximate cause but it might be hard to sell it as the major cause and as, therefore, confirming collusion.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe there was collusion and that more is to come. I just don't want to give the tRumpers fuel to say we're printing fake news. Touting this if it turns out he spent the same or less than other candidates could have that effect.

[Cryptoad]

6. "Lets be sure"????????

geeez!

[bitterross]

10. Did you even read my comments or the article?

Seriously. I'm tired of people giving Trump and his minions fuel for the FAKE NEWS mantra. I don't just repeat every negative HEADLINE that I read. The stories under them are frequently not a match to the headline.

[rainbow4321]

7. Absolutely understand what you are saying

Somewhere along the line whoever looks into the data/financing will probably reallllly have to dig deep into the $ books/$ trail to see where the money was coming from, what the $ was going towards.

This website leads to the FEC log of campaign funds directed to Parscale's company. The amounts spiked after June...went from 2-3 payments/month to several very large/month. Clicking on each entry leads to the actual FEC financial documents.


https://medium.com/@Felt/gp-ca-payments-2016-6ad231cf96df

Another site lays out more info about the finances. And I KNOW...yes, I know..that when you look,at the website it starts off with some Twitter handles that some don't like...it is NOT her website..it's put together by *someone else* who has put together various links and spread sheets about the data gathering and *financial* links, etc.. So for those who are not fond of Twitter names/handles, just look PAST them long enough to see the spread sheets and links provided.
Scroll down thru the page to find stuff like this:

https://medium.com/@Felt/grand-theory-supp-1-702488489a9f

The spreadsheet shows total monthly campaign expenditures only exceeding $70M twice: September and the period called “November Post-General.” In said periods, GP received payments from the campaign totaling $20.6M and $28.8M, respectively. The sheet also shows that payments to GP ranged from 21% to 46% of the Trump campaign’s monthly expenditures for June through November 2016.

Even if the payments made to Cambridge Analytics are added to the amounts received by GP, which includes a hefty $5M payment on September 1, 2016, the campaign’s easily-identifiable GP-related expenditures do not come close to $70M in any one month. If Parscale’s team was spending $70M a month on its operations for the campaign while never coming close to receiving that amount from the campaign, then GP lost money unless….err… perhaps we will discover a new meaning for “in the red.”
UPDATE: @RVAwonk has a good explanation. It might also be something like GP had its own vendors/bills to pay (good way to create some document gaps between parties). Payments to GP were also irregular in frequency and amount.

[RandomAccess]

9. The other thing that happened in this time frame

is that Trump clinched the nomination. I'd think it would be normal for a campaign to ramp up spending on such things at such a time.

This is an excellent timeline and includes what Hillary did that may have contributed to this episode. Tho I'm sure they'd have done it anyway, her actions might have pushed them or made them more intent:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/timeline-2016-campaign-russia-trump-jr-meeting

[Cryptoad]

8. We all know where most of this

money originated ,,,,,,, all will come out in the wash!