By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Come Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump will become not just the first American president to be a convicted felon, he’ll also be the first to make money from his own swearing-in.
That’s because The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust is the “100%” owner of the Florida company that sold the rights to “Trump’s name, likeness and image” to the online company that’s hawking the “Inauguration Day Edition God Bless The USA Bible.”
“I am proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible,” says Trump in an accompanying video. “We must make America pray again.”
The Inauguration Day Bible – “the trusted King James Version” that includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance – can be yours for $69.99 plus shipping. Or you can buy now and pay later with four interest-free payments of $17.50 every two weeks. A “GodBlessTheUSA” gift bag can be added.
But you’ve got to hurry.
“Available for a limited time only! Orders for this edition will be available until January 19th, 2025,” says the website GodBlessTheUSABible.com. As an added bonus, “every order will receive a free copy of ‘An All Star Salute To Lee Greenwood’ DVD.”
Inauguration Day, of course, is Jan. 20.
BIBLES FROM CHINA
Frequently asked questions on the seller’s website identify the company that was paid an undisclosed sum for the rights to market Trump’s Holy Bible as CIC Ventures LLC. CIC – apparently short for Commander in Chief – Ventures was incorporated in Delaware in February 2021 and registered in Florida three months later.
One thing not addressed in those FAQs is where the Bibles came from. In October, the Associated Press tracked down global trade records and reported that nearly 120,000 copies of the God Bless the USA Bible were printed in China and shipped to the U.S. in 2024 by New Ade Cultural Media, a printing company in Hangzhou. The Bibles were received by Freedom Park Design, a Florida company incorporated last March by Jared and Ashley Taylor of Gulf Shore, AL.
“The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible,” the AP reported. When an AP reporter called Freedom Park Design to ask about the Bibles Ashley Taylor “hung up.”
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at China, blaming it for the COVID-19 pandemic and taking jobs away from American workers. In his first term he began a trade war with China by applying tariffs that the Council on Foreign Relations has said now average about 18 percent on hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods. He has recently threatened to triple that.
While Trump’s federal financial disclosure forms in 2023 and 2024 list him as CIC Ventures LLC’s “manager, president, secretary & treasurer,” his name doesn’t appear on any state corporate records. Florida corporate records, however, listed two original managers: Nicholas Luna of North Miami and John B. Marion IV, a West Palm Beach lawyer.
You may recall Luna was a White House aide to President Trump, who also served as his so-called “body man” in 2020. Politico has reported that Luna, who testified before the Jan. 6 U.S. House Committee, was one of two Trump assistants responsible for overseeing the pack-up of Oval office records as Trump’s first four-year term was ending. Luna is married to another former Trump aide, Cassidy Dumbauld Luna, who more recently has worked as chief of staff to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner at Affinity Partners, the Sunny Isles private equity firm that’s managing Saudi Arabia’s $2-billion investment.
Luna’s name was dropped as a manager for the 2023 corporate filing. A few months earlier the company’s address was changed to 3502 Summit Boulevard in West Palm Beach – the Trump International Golf Club’s address.
THE $1,000 BIBLE
The Trump inaugural Bible is not being sold through the official merchandise store of the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Inc. It’s only being sold through country singer Lee Greenwood’s God Bless The USA website. That likely means Trump will personally receive a portion of the proceeds of the sale of Bibles, T-shirts, hats and other Trump-themed merchandise sold on the site.
The Trump Vance Inaugural Committee was incorporated in Florida on Nov. 12 by Jacob Roth, an attorney in the West Palm Beach office of California-based Dhillon Law Group, outside counsel to Trump’s campaign. Trump has nominated Dhillon’s founding partner, Harmeet Dhillon, to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division. The President-elect appointed Dhillon law partner David Warrington as his White House counsel.
(The Dhillon Group also represents Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s choice to co-lead with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy the new Department of Government Efficiency, in X Corp.’s antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and others for allegedly costing him billions of dollars in advertising revenue by conspiring to boycott X.)
In Trump’s financial disclosure form filed in August, the once and future president reported that in 2023 CIC Ventures LLC collected $300,000 in royalties from “The Greenwood Bible.” How much Trump took in during 2024 won’t be known until he files his next disclosure report later this year.
The New York Times reported on Jan. 8 that the inaugural committee has raised more than $170 million and that “the haul is so big that some seven-figure donors have been placed on wait lists or have been told they probably will not receive V.I.P. tickets at all because the events are at capacity.” CBS News reported that donors “still looking to give have been directed to fill the coffers of Trump-allied super PACs.”
In January 2017, President Trump was sworn in on two Bibles, one upon which Abraham Lincoln swore the oath on at his first inauguration in 1861 and another given to him by his mother in 1955.
This time it’s not known what Bible(s) Trump will employ. Should he choose the GodBlessTheUSA Bible, it could be the basic, $59.99 edition; the Inauguration Day Edition or The Day God Intervened Edition (“in remembrance of the day that God intervened during President Donald J. Trump’s assassination attempt”) on July 13, 2024 each for $69.99 ; or the pricey “signature edition” that’s going for $1,000 and features Trump’s “hand-signed” signature on a bookplate pasted onto the inside front cover page. “Only 1000 Available!” says the website.
The price of GodBlessTheUSA Bibles, autographed and not, could skyrocket if Trump is actually sworn in on one.
The FAQs don’t disclose the terms of the deal between Trump, 78, and Greenwood, 82, on dividing the profits, which could be considerable.
Other Trump merchandise for sale on GodBlessTheUSA.com includes sweatshshirts, bumper stickers and the $59.99 “limited” edition “Donald J. Trump Fight Fight Fight Sculpture”…”meticulously hand-painted resin mold with bronze tones and depicting “the immediate moment after President Trump was shot upon.”
Elsewhere, Trump peddles practically everything you can think of under his ubiquitous brand name – from jewelry, hats, T-shirts, guitars and American flag corkscrews to luggage, mugs, dog collars, shot glasses and glass Christmas ornaments like the red MAGA hat and Trump’s 757 jet plane.
But it certainly looks like Trump may well take the presidential oath of office next week on a Bible printed in China, for which he’s already been paid and may well be due an additional cut after he’s ensconced in the Oval Office.
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