Donald Trump’s former White House aide is under fire after a video showed him claiming to distribute fake money to homeless people so that they will be arrested when they spend it.
Johnny McEntee, formerly the White House Presidential Personnel Office under the former president, posted a video on TikTok in which he discusses the purported scheme to “clean up the community.”
“So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car, so when a homeless person asks for money, and I give them like a $5 bill, I feel good about myself, they feel good,” said McEntee, also a senior advisor to Project 2025. “And then when they go to use it, they get arrested, so I’m actually helping to clean up the community and get them off the street.”
I mean it isn’t counterfeit. Counterfeit is making a bill yourself that looks exactly like an actual bill. These specifically state they aren’t real.
I didn’t know about giving it out as a donation though.
The quality of the item is only a consideration if its unreasonable for a regular person to mistake it for real (a good example is bills printed in red). If someone could mistake it for genuine and you’re falsely presenting it as genuine - then you’ve got fraud.
Counterfeit is something that looks close enough that someone could believe it’s something it isn’t.
Hollywood money has to look real at a distance, the fact it says “not legal tender” in small print doesn’t make it not possible to be used as a counterfeit. If it’s crumpled or folded up, the obvious tells that it’s fake might be hidden. A person with poor eyesight or numb fingers can’t sense it well. When mixed in a pile of change and 1 dollar bills it can be missed.
Someone intentionally donating movie money to the homeless is using those bills as counterfeit bills. And that person then attempting to buy something with it is passing counterfeit currency, knowingly or not.