'Melania' tickets are the latest way to bribe Trump

A GOP lawmaker seeking President Donald Trump's endorsement in his Senate campaign bought out one entire showing of "Melania" at a theater, revealing that juicing ticket sales for the wretched documentary about Trump’s wife-in-name-only is a fresh new way to bribe the commander in chief.

Republican Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, gave away free tickets for a Jan. 30 showing of the film. The giveaway was promoted as part of his campaign, so he may have used campaign funds to purchase the tickets.

“Join Team Barr for a SPECIAL event to celebrate #Melania. We will be offering FREE limited tickets for the premiere of Melania right here in Kentucky. God bless our great FLOTUS [first lady of the United States],” Barr wrote in a Facebook post advertising the showing.

Barr is desperate for Trump's endorsement in the Senate race. He is currently trailing his GOP primary opponent, former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. A Trump endorsement could turn his fortunes around.

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So buying out a theater to help juice sales for Trump's wife's documentary would be a great way to curry favor with the president, who is obsessed with ratings and has shown that he can be easily bought. See: the $400 million jet from Qatar, the donations to fund Trump’s ugly ballroom, all of the pay-for-pardons Trump has handed out to fraudster crooks who have donated to his political campaigns, and the $500 million investment from from the Emirati royal family to the Trump family’s crypto company in exchange for their nation’s access to American chips. 

In fact, the “Melania” documentary itself is a bribe from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who reportedly spent $40 million to make the film and another $35 million to promote it, as a way to boost his business empire.

“Jeff Bezos gave Trump $40 million by buying the 'Melania' documentary through Amazon. Last week, it premiered. Now, Trump's 'Secretary of War' visits Bezos' Blue Origin, which gets billions in government contracts. Trump gets paid. Taxpayers get screwed,” Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas wrote in a post on X.

Back to Barr, however. His “Melania” giveaway to potential voters looks to be a serious ethical lapse, verging on a crime, as it is against federal law to buy votes. (Let’s not forget Elon Musk giving away $1 million to get people to register to vote.) 

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On top of all the bribery and potential law-breaking, the fact that at least one Republican bought out a showing's worth of tickets raises questions about how much of the ticket sales for the “Melania” doc are astroturfed like this.

Reports said the movie sold more than $7 million worth of tickets in its opening weekend, which many in the mainstream media cheered as a massive feat. But the large sales were suspect from the start since some online ticket-booking sites showed barely any tickets had been purchased on its opening night.

It looks like there were other mass buys of tickets, too. U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, the jilted lover of Donald Trump Jr., hosted the Greek premiere of the film. And box-office insider Tom Brueggemann wrote on his Substack that “industry sources say there were signs that blocs of tickets were purchased for the weekend, then distributed to senior citizen homes, Republican activitists [sic], [and] other interested parties for free to help boost audiences.”

First-quarter fundraising reports—which are due to be filed with the Federal Election Commission on April 15—should shed more light on whether other GOP lawmakers, candidates, and campaigns bulk-purchased tickets to juice sales.

We will be waiting to pour through them to see just how much of a lie ticket sales likely were.

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