Within the midst of a rising calls from his personal base to launch extra details about his friendship with convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump sought to alter the topic over the weekend by as soon as once more making claims about Beyoncé‘s look at a rally for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a prolonged publish on his social community, Trump falsely claimed that Beyoncé broke marketing campaign finance legal guidelines by allegedly taking house an $11 million verify for her endorsement of his democratic presidential rival Harris at her Oct. 2024 rally in Houston. However, as reported by CNN, there’s “merely no foundation” for the declare that Queen Bey obtained a multi-million fee from the Harris marketing campaign.
In truth, CNN reported that the one official fee from Harris to the singer was a $165,000 verify from the marketing campaign to Beyoncé’s manufacturing firm, which the marketing campaign listed as a “marketing campaign occasion manufacturing” expense, with a Harris marketing campaign spokesperson telling Deadline final yr that resulting from marketing campaign finance legal guidelines, they didn’t pay any superstar endorsers, however had been legally required to cowl the prices of their appearances.
The claims that Beyoncé was paid hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to again Harris started to unfold on social media amongst Trump supporters final yr, based on CNN, with a lot of fact-checking websites discovering no proof to again it up. When requested for remark, a Harris spokesperson referred to a November Instagram post from Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, during which she wrote, “The lie is that Beyonce was paid 10 million {dollars} to talk at a rally in Houston for Vice President Kamala Harris. When In Truth : Beyonce didn’t obtain a penny for talking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harrris’s Rally in Houston. In truth she truly paid for her personal flights for her and her group, and complete Glam . They aren’t solely mendacity and disrespecting Beyonce’s identify however they’re making an attempt to additional discredit the facility of our vp! When does the lies and rumors cease?”
Along with the looks, Beyoncé gave Harris clearance to make use of her 2016 track “Freedom” because the democratic nominee’s official marketing campaign track.
“I’m trying on the giant amount of cash owed by the Democrats after the presidential election and the truth that they admit to paying, most likely illegally, $11 million {dollars} to singer Beyoncé for an ENDORSEMENT (she by no means sang, not one observe…),” Trump claimed in the newest Reality Social publish, during which he additionally made unsupported allegations that Oprah Winfrey and civil rights activist Al Sharpton had been paid to seem with Harris.
The weekend salvo of claims got here two months after Trump’s previous warning that he supposed to launch a “main investigation” into his claims that Beyoncé, U2 singer Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Winfrey made what he deemed “main and unlawful marketing campaign contribution[s]” to Harris. To this point Trump has not supplied any proof of such funds and reps for Springsteen, Bono and Beyoncé haven’t commented on the allegations. As well as, to date, no information of an such official investigation has surfaced.
A November New York Times investigation discovered that the celebrity-related bills at Harris’ rallies went to pay for help workers and manufacturing prices, to not the celebs themselves. As well as, CNN reported that the White Home didn’t reply to its request for any proof of a Democratic admission of the claimed $11 million fee. The community additionally famous that Trump falsely claimed that it’s “TOTALLY ILLEGAL” to pay for political endorsements, when, in reality, there’s no federal law prohibiting endorsement funds.
The missive got here simply days after Trump claimed that former President Barack Obama dedicated “legal acts,” baselessly accusing the two-term Democrat of “treason” in investigating Russia’s election interference in 2016. The barrage of unsubstantiated claims have coincided with the White Home’s weekslong scramble to include the fall-out from their flip-flop on the discharge of information associated to convicted intercourse trafficker Epstein after information broke final week that Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi advised Trump in Could that his identify appeared within the Epstein information.