Still Fighting for Us Americans!

An account in exchange for an ownership stake in the company. That’s the deal Parler reportedly offered then-President Donald Trump to make the online haven for deplatformed right-wingers and extremists his primary social network.

The Trump Organization, which negotiated on behalf of the president, was offered a 40% stake in Parler if Trump made an account on the platform, though nothing was ever finalized, according to documents reviewed by Buzzfeed News and four sources familiar with the deliberations that spoke with the outlet. The talks began sometime last summer and then sparked up once more in November after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, ostensibly so that he’d have another online soapbox on which to blare (and profit off of) his election fraud conspiracy theories. Per Buzzfeed News, it’s not clear how much Trump personally participated in these negotiations.

But even though nothing ultimately came of the deal, just by entertaining those discussions the Trump Organization could be in for some serious legal headaches. The whole mess almost certainly runs afoul of anti-bribery laws. It’s also triggering flashbacks to when Trump tried to strongarm Microsoft into giving the U.S. treasury a cut of any TikTok deal it made.

Turns out, when you put a corrupt businessman in charge of a country, he abuses his power to try to make a buck. Who woulda thunk?