I actually don't believe the NFT sale was primarily intended to be a scam, but the secondary effects of scamming his own fanbase were of course problably welcome. If someone were able to trace all the payments to their sources, it would not surprise me if the primary purpose of the NFT sale involved:
- violation of the emoluments clause.
- bribery/quid pro quo (pay me now for the presidential acts I agreed to do, but also people who helped him financially earlier may be early investors who are intended to be beneficiaries of the rugpull).
- Trump 2 being more of a shared puppet than we realize.