When someone runs for office, they're supposed to disclose their taxes and financial records in the interest of full transparency. Democrats have honored this off-the-books tradition ever since Richard Nixon's criminality spurred politicians to prove their true innocence to gain the public trust.
Yes, that's a poke at Donald Trump for never releasing his taxes. And it's also a challenge to his new running mate, eyeliner enthusiast and memoir-enhancer JD "Hillbilly Effigy" Vance.
Calls for Vance to release his taxes began on Thursday after his questionable Venmo transactions were released.
The expose from Wired.com shows that Vance has an "extensive network" of Venmo connections with "establishment GOP heavyweights, wealthy financiers, technology executives, the prestige press, and fellow graduates of Yale Law School—precisely the elites he rails against."
A Republican with shady business ties? SAY NOT SO, Clarence Thomas!
Wired spills all of the tea on transactions between Vance and more than 200 people who appear on his Venmo “friends” list. One is Amalia Halikias, government relations director at the Heritage Foundation—the Christian cult cabal behind the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, Project 2025.
Vance had claimed he knew nothing about Heritage and their plot to take away all basic rights from anyone who isn't a white Christian male Trumpublican, but OOPSIE, he made a speech there in 2022.
Also on his Friends List: right-wing journalists and media personalities like Bari Weiss and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Again, color me shocked.
Wired reached out to experts for their take on Vance's Venmo.
“This appears to be his actual personal contacts," says Jordan Libowitz, the vice president of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. He notes that the data found on Venmo is much more personal than what campaigns typically share through official channels, warning that “the more personal data that is public about someone the more points of pressure or influence there are on that person.”
Seems bad, Hillbilly Effigy. Maybe take a tip from Matt Gaetz and make it all private, even though it can still be admissible as evidence.
Read the full piece at Wired.