BREAKING: Donald Trump is hit with a mysterious scandal as it's unearthed that a shady company has received more than $3 million from his campaign so far this year — and the owners aren't disclosed.
But the plot thickens...
According to campaign finance records, the money in question has been funneled to "Launchpad Strategies LLC." It was incorporated in Delaware in November and has a Raleigh, North Carolina post office box as its listed address.
Bizarrely, state officials in North Carolina told NBC News that they have no record of the company registered in the state.
"We don’t have a business entity by that name in our Business Registration database," explained Liz Proctor, a spokeswoman for North Carolina's secretary of state.
Thus far, the company has received $3.1 million from the Trump campaign and an affiliated joint fundraising committee. It's the second-largest vendor used this year by the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.
Crucially, "Launchpad Strategies LLC" has never before done political work for state-level or federal candidates according to financial disclosures.
This of course raises the obvious question: What is this company and who is benefitting from it?
Their website offers zero information about its services or who operates it. NBC News reached out to the organization for explanation but heard nothing back.
Watchdog groups are understandably concerned.
"It’s concerning to see a company formed just six months ago suddenly receive over $3.1 million from Donald Trump’s network of political committees, particularly since there is virtually no public information about this company," said Saurav Ghosh, the Campaign Legal Center's director of federal campaign finance reform.
"Who works there, what services they offer or have provided and whether Trump’s payments to ‘Launchpad Strategies LLC’ are for bona fide services or are, instead, actually payments to other vendors funneled through a mere corporate shell," Ghosh added.
Something deeply shady is going on here and since it involves our presidential election, the American people have a right to know what.
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@ianmiles I know I speak for many, many persons when I say
I hope they and anyone else in this incident are OK
or at least make a full recovery. Hopes and prayers
people.
Trump: So I said, let me ask you a question and he said, nobody ever asked this question and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there, by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that a lot of shark? I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what who she was? These people are. He said there's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand a young woman swimming now. It really got decimated and other people do a lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you he didn't know the answer. He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single time