DONALD TRUMP'S ULTIMATE BETRAYAL

Throughout the early months of Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he trumpeted as fact that his campaign, unlike the campaigns of his competitors, was "self-funded."

When he announced his candidacy in June, 2015, he said, "I don't need anybody's money. I'm using my own money. I'm not using the lobbyists. I'm not using donors...I'm really rich."

Conservatives were jubilant.

Here was their flesh-and-blood response to Hillary and Bill Clinton, whom, for 25 years, Republicans and their related right-wing cousins (from time-to-time including an interesting brew of white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragons and Grand Lizards, white nationalists, Nazi sympathizers, committed xenophobes and other assorted hate groups and haters) have never stopped investigating/accusing of being "bought"/"owned" by almost every special interest group on the planet. (The almost obscene amount of money GOP candidates received from the Koch Brothers, Big Oil/Big Energy, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Banks/Big Money, Sheldon Adelson, etc. in 2012 is, of course, irrelevant.)

Despite spending millions of taxpayer dollars trying to dig up dirt---most of which they already knew wasn't there---on the Clintons, however, they have never been able to point to a single instance in which it appears that any decision she made as a senator from New York or as Secretary of State or that he made as president was related to either a campaign donation or a donation to the Clinton Foundation.

Not. One.

Nonetheless, they were suddenly able to gleefully point to a genuine(?) Republican candidate who, unlike Secretary Clinton and unlike any of Mr. Trump's Republican opponents, was "self-funding" because, as he put it, he was not going to be a "puppet" for super PACS or big donors. He was not, he said, going to be beholden to anyone. Doing his best Gary Cooper (a real reach for Donald Trump), he claimed that he would be beholden "to no man." He would "owe no man." He was, he said, "my own man, belonging to no one else." He was deserving of a spot on Mount Rushmore, so to speak, because he was "self-funding."

Millions of us---Democrats and knowledgeable Republicans as well---took the opportunity to indulge ourselves in a massive internet "LOL!"

And, sure enough, it didn't take long to discover that The Donald was lying about the "self-funding" claim.

For one thing, in Q2 and Q3 of 2015, about 67% of the total raised for Mr. Trump's campaign came not from Mr. Trump but from private donations.

It was only when that embarrassing footnote became public knowledge that The Donald, in Q4 of 2015, suddenly loaned his campaign $10.8 million, which radically changed the percentage of his campaign receipts that came from his own accounts. Read, it made his EOY numbers for 2015 look better.

Interestingly, as the NYTimes reported in February, "about $2.7 million" of Mr. Trump's loans to his campaign was used to repay companies he owns or people who work for him "for services provided to his campaign." More than $2 million was used to pay for the use of his own planes and helicopter. Over $250,000 was paid to Trump Tower, home to his Fifth Avenue office. And $66,000 went to his bodyguard. As the Times noted, "Mr. Trump is in effect taking millions of dollars out of one pocket and depositing it into another."

Most interesting, however, is the fact that every dollar donated by Mr. Trump to his own campaign was designated not as a "donation" but as a "loan." Which means that The Donald could and probably will ask that the great majority of the money he used to, uh, self-fund his campaign be repaid to him when the campaign is over and vendors/lenders are being paid.

He denies that he will use solicited campaign funds to repay those loans to himself, but my guess is that The Donald's loan will be the first to be repaid.

Of course, logic dictates that we ask how Mr. Trump will pay himself back if he is "self-funding" his campaign. After all, if he is "self-funding," from where will the money to repay himself come?

Easy.

He has no intention of "self-funding" his campaign. As we know, he lied about "self-funding" his primary campaign. And, as we found out this past week, he isn't going to "self-fund" his general election campaign, either.

The Donald's most sure-fire applause line at his raucous rallies last fall involved what he called "the corrupt campaign financing system." He was "self-funding," he said, because participating in "the corrupt corporate financing system" meant that a candidate inevitably "owed favors" to big donors.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has now announced that he will begin active fund-raising and will be accepting campaign funds from big donors---Sheldon Adelson, the dark, murky casino owner from Vegas who was linked to a sex-trafficking investigation in Macau, has committed $100 million "and perhaps more"---and super PACS.

This constitutes far more than just a political "flip-flop"---though Mr. Trump has more than just a passing familiarity with political flip-flops. This constitutes a betrayal of those "true believers" who jammed his rallies, lobbied their neighbors, cast votes for him and, in the face of darned near universal incredulity, actually bought his snake oil. He lied to them and knew the whole time that he was lying.

The Donald has flip-flopped on just about every political position, such as they are, he has ever claimed to hold. But his boast about "self-funding" wasn't a political position. He was making a statement about his personal character. And, in doing so, he was making a statement about the character of a Trump presidency---he would be a president like none before him, "owing no man."

And he was lying. Knowingly lying.