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An inadvertent update in the past on Donald Trump’s online fundraising calls allows him to divert a significant portion of his 2024 contributions to an organization that has spent millions to cover its legal fees.
By Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman
Faced with multiple and intense investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he raises from his 2024 presidential crusade to a political action committee he used to pay his non-public legal fees.
The change, which has not been announced in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises new questions about how Trump is paying his mounting legal expenses, which can amount to millions of dollars, while preparing for at least two scammers. lawsuits, and whether his PAC, Save America, faces a currency crisis.
When Mr. Trump unveiled his 2024 crusade in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his crusade and one cent to Save America.
But records show that in February or March it adjusted that distribution. Now, their crusading percentage has dropped to 90% of donations, with 10% going to Save America.
The effect of this update is potentially significant: Based on fundraising figures announced through his campaign, the fine print would likely have already diverted at least $1. 5 million to Save America.
And the group’s lifestyle has allowed Trump to pay his legal fees through his small donors, rather than paying them himself.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, did not respond to detailed questions about why Operation Trump replaced the way the budget it raises is distributed. Save America technically has a list of the email addresses and phone numbers of its supporters, one of the former president’s most valuable assets, and the crusade will well pay the PAC for that list, he explained.
“Because the crusade must ensure that each and every dollar given to President Trump is spent as cost-effectively as possible, fair market research was conducted to make mailing list rentals more effective by converting the distribution of fundraising between the two entities. Cheung said in a written statement.
The regulations governing what political action committees and candidate crusading committees can pay are dizzying and somewhat disputed. candidate personally.
For more than a year, before Trump ran in 2024, Save America was paying expenses similar to investigations into the former president and his allies. In February 2022, PAC announced it had $122 million in its coffers.
By early 2023, CAP’s monetary position had shrunk to $18 million, according to the filings. The rest had been spent on staff salaries, on Trump’s prices last year, adding some expenses for other applicants and equipment, and in other ways. This included the $60 million that was transferred to MAGA Inc. , a super PAC that supports Trump. Et more than $16 million was used to pay legal fees.
Trump’s rivals don’t percentage their online revenue stream in the same way with an affiliate PAC. The websites of former Vice President Mike Pence, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina direct all proceeds to their crusade committees. The same goes for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“I believe that in this specific situation, i. e. due to the use of the leadership PAC to pay legal fees and other potential expenses that would be an illegal non-public use of crusade money, there is an incentive for the leadership PAC to invest more than it normally would,” Adav Noti said. Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Campaign Legal Center.
As Trump’s latest crusade approached, his legal expenses skyrocketed. Save America spent $1. 9 million on what’s known as legal fees in the first part of 2022. That figure rose to nearly $14. 6 million in the current portion of last year, according to federal records.
In late 2022, a Trump adviser said about $20 million had been set aside through Save America PAC to cover legal fees.
Since then, Mr. Trump has been indicted twice, once through a Manhattan grand jury for fees stemming from a silent payment to a porn star, and again through a Florida federal grand jury for fees that add violations of the Mr. Possession Espionage Act. Trump of classified documents and government documents long after leaving office.
One prominent lawyer, Todd Blanche, left his management law firm in April to join the former president’s legal team and now represents him in either case, and Trump recently met with a dozen lawyers in Florida.
Trump’s legal department is deeply tied to his political crusade and fundraising efforts. His tent sells a T-shirt that reads “I Stand With Trump” that appears on the date of his indictment in Manhattan (“30. 03. 2023”) for $36; She recently added a momentary blouse with her Florida indictment date (“06. 08. 2023”) for $38. Half of the pieces that appear on the store’s homepage show a fake photo ID and the words “not guilty. “
And Mr. Trump’s old legal strategy (wait, wait, wait) may prove costly, as overlapping groups of white-collar lawyers protect him in the federal case and the Manhattan burglar case, as well as the Georgia case. investigation, where Mr. Trump may face another indictment this summer for his role in seeking to cancel the 2020 election. He also faces an intense investigation through special counsel Jack Smith into his efforts to cling to force after squandering the election.
It’s still unclear whether Trump will try to use his crusade budget to pay lawyers, whether he will get in trouble with the political action committee and whether such a measure will pass against spending rules.
“He can use the crusade to pay for legal fees that arise from the activity of applicants or office holders and, of course, some of the existing legal instances fall into that category, and some do not, and some are in a gray area,” Mr. Noti said. “It’s based on what we’re talking about. “
Jason Torchinsky, a Republican election lawyer, said he believes Trump is not allowed to use Save America donations to pay for his non-public legal fees now that he is running, arguing it would be “an overstated contribution” under Federal Election Commission precedent. And he said Mr. Trump could not use the crusade cash at all, because it would be considered a non-public use.
There have been signs that Mr. Trump has been keeping an eye on his spending.
He has typically attended events organized through other groups, rather than holding his own large-scale political rallies, which have been the cornerstone of his last two presidential bids and are one of his favorite parts of the campaign. at least $150,000 and more than $400,000.
Trump has held only one large-scale rally in the seven months he has led, with a time scheduled for July 1 in South Carolina, the first in an early nominating state. (A rally in Iowa on May 13 was canceled after a tornado warning, the weather cleared and Mr. DeSantis held an impromptu event nearby. )
People familiar with Trump’s campaign plans said the dearth of rallies has as much to do with controlling resources as it does with getting Trump to interact with the electorate in a more classical way. , while the main race heats up.
But the fundraising outbreaks Trump experienced after his first indictment last March and in June mask a broader slowdown in fundraising. His crusade announced that he had raised $12 million in the first week after his first indictment and $7 million the week after his second. He will then reveal the prestige of his PAC and the crusade’s finances in federal documents in July.
Trump relies heavily on online fundraising. He organized only one major fundraising campaign that was presented as such through his team: the event in Bedminster on the night of his indictment. It grossed $2 million.
Shane Goldmacher is a national political reporter and was once the chief political correspondent for Metro’s bureau. Prior to joining The Times, he worked at Politico, where he covered national Republican politics and the presidential campaign of 2016. @ShaneGoldmacher
Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent and member of “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. “He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their ties to Russia. . @maggieNYT
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