More than $27M in Trump campaign fundraising went to legal costs in the last six months of 2023

The former president was indicted four times last year and has also had to answer civil lawsuits targeting his business and him as an individual.

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s affiliated committees spent about $27 million on lawyers’ bills and related legal fees in the last six months of 2023, new federal election filings show, bringing the total for a year that included four separate indictments to almost $50 million.

Trump’s political fundraising apparatus is sprawling, but the new filings show that the price of lawyers is weighing him down. Still, Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, has seized on the legal cases against him as a potent fundraising tool, with his booking in a Georgia election case giving him what his campaign said was a record single-day haul.

Save America PAC, one of the groups Trump uses to raise money, spent $24.3 million on “legal consulting” in the last six months of 2023, according to federal election filings. That includes payments to firms that include lawyers like John Lauro, who is representing Trump in the case related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election; Todd Blanche, who also represents Trump in the New York hush money case; and Alina Habba, who represents Trump in the defamation case filed against him by author E. Jean Carroll and has appeared at his criminal arraignments.

While the Save America PAC raised $36 million over the last six months, $30 million came across six monthly payments from Make America Great Again Inc., a Trump-affiliated super PAC. While Save America helped provide early funding for MAGA Inc. when it launched at the beginning of Trump’s presidential bid, it appears that much of that money has been returned to Save America, which has been the primary vehicle for paying Trump’s legal fees. In the first six months of 2023, Save America PAC took more than $12 million from MAGA Inc.

Save America ended the year with just $5 million in cash banked away after having spent $35.2 million in total in the second half of 2023, almost as much as it raised.

On top of the legal spending from Save America, another Trump-affiliated group, the Make America Great Again PAC (which, under federal law, Trump raises money toward, and he can say how the money is used) spent $2.4 million on additional legal consulting in the second half of 2023.

Both groups also reimbursed another company, which handles campaign finance compliance and prepares disclosures for the campaign, millions more for legal fees. It was not clear whether those legal fees were associated with complying with federal campaign finance law or with investigations into Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election.

A fund to cover the legal fees for some of Trump’s aides raised more than $1.6 million from July to December, according to its filing. Known as the Patriot Legal Defense Fund, it does not contribute toward Trump’s legal expenses.

The filings show the brunt of the financial weight of Trump’s legal defense across four criminal cases, including two indictments related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and one over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House. He also has been the subject of a civil fraud lawsuit in Manhattan related to his business.

Trump’s legal woes have also taken him off of the campaign trail and into courtrooms, monopolizing resources and diverting him with legal brawls.

Trump’s rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, has attacked Trump over his legal spending, posting on X this week, “He can’t beat Joe Biden if he’s spending all his time and money on court cases and chaos.”

Haley has continued to raise money despite early losses to Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire, even as he threatens to blacklist her donors.

So donations in support of Trump’s reelection are channeled elsewhere. If it were any one other than Trump, the posters here would be apoplectic. Moral relativism is one of the characteristics of True Believers.

In AFTER a NeverTrumper ignores or doesn't understand the points being made by many on this thread.

LOL!

Don’t be so angry there Angry Trumper. Look at the replies here on this thread that indicate the millions Trump is spending will only result in a win come November.

Don’t you want that? I do

Boy, aren’t you being clever...

Trump spending will only result in a win.... but you don’t say for who....

And, from your history and attacks, just in this thread, it appears the win you want, is for the left.

Most of the politicians pocket the money from campaigns. Mr. Trump’s legal fee’s are actually buying the kind of street creed and sympathy that he probably doesn’t even have to pay the MSM for advertising.

Trump paying lawyers makes everyone want to vote for him to fix this country - everyone see’s the democrat/RINO corruption. They want law and order, cops and a sealed boarder.

Note to NBC. The money he would have spend on campaign commercials is being spent more effectively for lawyers, which actually highlights the corruption of the political system and the legal system. People want it fixed.

Without the political prosecution, Trump would be feeding the MSM beast - but now one of the democrat’s most effective information operations is being shortchanged due to their shortsightness and lawfare.

Wow. A twofer. You're butt hurt and you've nothing to defend your actions except insults.

Defend my actions? WTH are you talking about never_Trumper? Besides, all you rate are insults. I know you're still ticked off about being dumb enough to support a loser but that's no ones fault but yours. Some of you idjits should take a couple of days off and reflect on how gullible and easily led you are.

“FReepers here are GLAD to pay for the millions of dollars in legal fees.”

Hell yes.

The only reason they indicted him was to derail his campaign. If he hadn’t decided run, these legal fees would not have been incurred. That makes them campaign costs.

Anyone without TDS would see it that way.

After promising to “lock her up” Trump now says he doesn’t care about prosecuting Hillary

https://youtu.be/Ix49LjgaTaI?si=_QRw9vLn1z0blKRE

Trump keeping 50 Obama administration officials

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/315049-trump-keeping-50-obama-administration-officials/

Moral relativism is one of the characteristics of True Believers.

Abandoning one’s long held conservative positions gets easier and easier each time you have to do it.

They’re pros at it now.

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