32 Comments
User's avatar
Scott Dyment's avatar

Our current world need more young investigative journalists like you ✊

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you, Scott!

Paulina's avatar

Impressive writing.

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you, Paulina! I really appreciate your kind comment.

Toby White's avatar

Zach, amazing reporting. Sources, annotations, I love it. Please keep it up.

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you, Toby!

Katherine Herring's avatar

Excellent! Thank you for the time, energy, and research you put into your article.

Brenda Methlie's avatar

Amazingly disgusting that we live in a country where the ultra rich will take extra backhanded measures to support someone so vile and criminal just to create more wealth for themselves than they know what to do with….regardless of the consequences for the rest of the country.

Also…great writing! With receipts.

Sharon's avatar

Hey—amazing research. Just wanted to point out—as a sometime proofreader—that these sentences seemed to have double negatives that made them mean what I think is the opposite of what you meant:

“It’s hard not to see this list and not think about all of the people Trump put in government roles…

It’s hard not to see this list and not think about all of Trump’s policies favorable to billionaires….” Two negatives cancel each other out. (Like you can say “I want to go” or “I don’t want not to go” and they mean pretty much the same thing.) Better: “it’s hard to see this list and not think about…” And so on. All to say: Amazing article; always proofread.

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you for pointing that out. I just corrected my mistake. This is a valuable lesson I will learn thanks to you. I appreciate your help!

Karen's avatar

This is fascinating! As I read this I was wondering why they would bother for such a relatively small amount of money, which made me wonder if it was only Guam. Did you check if all of these people also paid $10,000 into other state parties? It would be less obvious from states where it wasn’t 97% of donations but you should be able to see if many of the people in your list made donations to several state parties. How do you think they got Guam to just agree to give it to the RNC?

Zach Kahn's avatar

That is going to be my next step- figuring out how exactly this happened. There were a few small donors from Florida that likely are good Palm Beach friends of Trump that I think I will reach out to, and there are three or so donors I could not find any information on that I want to contact for more information.

Mary Augusta Thomas's avatar

Brilliant. Follow the money indeed!

Stephanie Fryer's avatar

Excellent and thorough. Every time the curtain gets pulled back on the ways that the rich manipulate systems to cheat and steal from society is a win for truth, accountability and democracy. I look forward to seeing what you do next.

Well done Zach!

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you, Stephanie!

Purple Irish Sweater's avatar

Nicely done!! Thank you for your hard work!

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thank you for checking the article out!

WE Colling's avatar

Go get them Zack

Sandra Kinzer's avatar

Great investigative reporting!

Zach Kahn's avatar

Thanks for reading, Sandra!

Sue Garrity's avatar

Excellent research and article. Shared with a retired co-worker who's a campaign finance expert and he also enjoyed your writing - said it was a "remarkable article". And he's a curmudgeonly old former Republican so this is high praise!

Debra Schneider's avatar

Where can I buy you a cup of coffee to thank you for this investigative work?

Sheryl Cox's avatar

Not to be a cremudgen but are the republicans the only party doing this?

Michael Steiner's avatar

At this point - I just woke up ...so ---can't remember what I replied ...ooops.