Political analyst explained the purpose of collecting donations in the U.S. for the presidential inauguration

Large US corporations have always made donations to the inauguration of presidents, and this is not necessarily lobbying, political scientist and retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen told Izvestia on December 21.

"So what do they get for doing this? They may get special access, they may be invited to certain receptions, they may have a lot of tickets that are given to the inaugural ball or inaugural events. They may be seated closer at the swearing-in ceremony," he explained.

According to the expert, in this case we are talking about a donation to a non-profit organization created for the inauguration committee. These funds help cover the cost of the event, but the spending will have to be reported to the federal election committee.

Thus, those donating now to the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump are not following the example of billionaire Ilon Musk, but are doing the same thing they do at every election, the political scientist said.

At the same time, he noted that donations can influence some appointments. In particular, most American ambassadors tend to be large financial donors, Rasmussen added.

The expert regretted that in the United States there are in principle contributions both at the inauguration and during the election itself. According to Rasmussen, although such a system has some restrictions on spending, ideally it should be gotten rid of.

Earlier, on December 11, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the U.S. corporation Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund in order to establish relations with the future leader of the country. In the past, the company did not invest in the Trump Foundation in the election in 2017 and sponsored the foundation of the current American leader Joe Biden in 2021.

Before that, on December 6, it became known that Musk spent at least $260 million on Trump's election campaign. It was noted that such a volume of funds makes him one of the largest political sponsors.

The election of the 47th President of the United States was held on November 5. In the national vote, Trump received 51% of the vote, while Democratic candidate Kamala Harris received 47.4%.

In the past, after the 2016 election, $107 million in donations were collected for Trump's inauguration, because of which US federal prosecutors initiated an investigation in 2018.