• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 29, 2024

If there was a grifting equivalent of the entertainment industry's EGOT, I would nominate Donald J. Trump.

The EGOT, of course stands for a person who wins all four of America's most coveted entertainment awards: the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar and the Tony.

And while Trump may never have won an Emmy for "The Apprentice" or an Oscar for any of his movie cameo roles, his next big con -- shaking down publicly traded stock shareholders -- will make him a GOAT: Grifter Of All Time.

He is already highly regarded as a champion of conning private lenders, taxpayers (federal, state and municipal), political donors, and even the Republican National Committee, but his next one will be the biggest grift of all time: an estimated $4 billion in stock when his Trump Media & Technology Group merges with publicly traded shell company Digital World Access Corporation.

Digital World's shareholders are scheduled to vote March 22 on whether to merge with Trump Media, whose flagship property is social media app Truth Social.

"Mr. Trump will have an overwhelming majority stake in the post-merger company and own 79 million shares," reports The New York Times, noting: "Shares of Digital World have soared this year on expectations that the deal will be completed and that Mr. Trump will win the Republican nomination for president. The stock closed on Monday at $47.23 per share. At that price, the former president’s stake would be worth nearly $4 billion."

At least on paper. The merger agreement prevents Trump from selling any shares for at least six months, though as the Times' reporting notes, there may be ways around that too.