Under the Trump campaign’s theory that it can pay a lump sum to a private company like Parscale’s, there is nothing stopping it from funneling all of its spending that way each month, with the public getting zero details on how any of it is being spent, Fischer said.
He acknowledged that previous campaigns have used similar entities in the past — the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 created a firm, American Rambler, to buy all of its television advertising — but nothing on this scale.
“The Trump campaign has taken it to another level,” Fischer said.
Parscale was recently demoted from campaign manager to the head of digital strategy, the same job he had in Trump’s 2016 campaign, during which his firms were paid $93.9 million. Trump, according to informal advisers close to the White House, was unhappy with how much money Parscale had made for himself, even as the campaign and the RNC together spent close to a billion dollars and Trump himself slid in the polls.
Thanks to his newfound wealth, Parscale, who just a few years ago was designing websites in San Antonio for Trump’s properties, has been able to buy a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a pair of million-dollar condos, a brand new $400,000 boat, and another half-million dollars in luxury cars, including a Range Rover and a Ferrari.
