Washington Post: Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social

Mod: With Donald there is usually a sleaze factor. 

Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social (The Washington Postlink): An obscure financial entity with connections to a Caribbean-island bank that bills itself as a top payment service for adult entertainment sites would gain a sizable stake in former president Donald Trump’s media company if its merger deal proceeds, according to internal documents a company whistleblower has shared with federal investigators and The Washington Post.

Yet the role ES Family Trust would assume in Trump Media and Technology Group has never been officially disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission or to shareholders in Digital World Acquisition, the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that has proposed merging with Trump’s company.

The companies also have not disclosed to shareholders or the SEC that Trump Media paid a $240,000 finder’s fee for helping to arrange the $8 million loan deal with ES Family Trust— or that the recipient of that fee was an outside brokerage associated with Patrick Orlando, then Digital World’s CEO.

Where ES Family Trust obtained the money, and who is behind the trust, remain publicly unknown, omissions that unnerved some of Trump Media’s top executives when they first learned of the loan in late 2021, according to Will Wilkerson, a whistleblower who at the time was the company’s executive vice president of operations.

Republican members of Congress and Trump supporters have complained for months that the SEC’s year-long delay in approving the merger has been fueled by anti-Trump bias and a “woke political agenda.” Trump Media’s primary business is the social media site Truth Social.

Co-founder of Trump’s media company details Truth Social’s bitter infighting

But the financial tangle offers a possible explanation for why the SEC has yet to approve the deal, said Michael Ohlrogge, a New York University law professor who studies SPACs. He called the deal unusual and rife with questionable decisions and potential conflicts of interest.

Mod: More on the off-shore porno paymaster and Truth Social at the link.

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