Wonder Woman 1984

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of a Republican operative who had been pardoned by Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.

The District of Columbia Circuit Court rejected an appeal by Jesse Benton, a former senior aide to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, of his November 2022 conviction for orchestrating a scheme to conceal a $100,000 donation from a Russian national to his GOP consulting firm — and pocketing most of it.

Russian businessman Roman Vasilenko wired the money under his own name to the consulting firm, but Benton kept $75,000 for himself and gave $25,000 under his name to the presidential campaign for Trump, who posed for a photo with Vasilenko. Benton then filed a false report with the Federal Election Commission to conceal the source of the funds, the court found.

The Trump campaign was not aware of the true source of that donation.

Benton had appealed the conviction, saying Trump's 2020 pardon should have prevented the jury from hearing about his previous election crimes before convicting him of the newer charges.

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However, prosecutors argued that the unusual manner in which Trump handed out pardons by sidestepping the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney should have allowed them to present evidence of Benton's previous conviction for bribing an Iowa politician to switch his endorsement in 2011 to Ron Paul's long-shot presidential campaign.

The 45-year-old Benton, who is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for that straw donor scheme.

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Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, is scrambling to stop short sellers from tanking its share values.

NBC News reports that Trump Media this week sent around suggestions to shareholders to prevent their shares in the company from winding up in the hands of short sellers who are essentially betting on the company's failure to make money.

According to NBC, the "tips include holding DJT shares in a cash account at a brokerage firm as opposed to a margin account, 'opting out of any securities lending program,' moving Trump Media shares to the company’s designated transfer agent, and transferring shares to a bank and 'holding them in your retirement account.'"

Short sellers essentially pay brokerage firms fees to borrow shares on a temporary basis on the belief that the shares will sink in price.

READ MORE: From 'really rich' to begging: Inside Trump's U-turn on one of his first campaign lies

After borrowing the shares, the short sellers proceed to sell them on the open market and then by them back by a specific date when they have to be returned to their owners.

If the share price in that time has indeed gone down, then the short sellers pocket the difference they made between the original sale and the repurchase.

If the share price increases, however, the short sellers lose money because they'll be buying back the shares at a higher price than the original sale.

Short sellers have swarmed to Trump Media shares for weeks now, as its price has plummeted from a high of $66.22 on March 27th to a low of $22.84 on Tuesday, although its price has recovered some of that lost value in the last day-and-a-half of trading.

The longer-term threat to Trump Media's value likely isn't short sellers, however, but simply a lack of profitability. The selloff in shares started earlier this month when the company released an earnings report showing that it lost $58 million in the last fiscal year while generating just $4 million in revenues.