Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00026657
THE TRUMP SAGA
WHERE IS TRUMP GETTING THE MONEY?
Trump Has Only $6.8 Million for Legal Fees With Trial Underway
Trump faces imminent cash crunch in legal fee accounts
Wealthy donors, Republican party could pay for Trump’s lawyers
WHERE IS TRUMP GETTING THE MONEY?
Trump Has Only $6.8 Million for Legal Fees With Trial Underway
Trump faces imminent cash crunch in legal fee accounts
Wealthy donors, Republican party could pay for Trump’s lawyers
Original article:
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Trump is a brilliant con-artist ... absolutely brilliant.
I crossed paths with Trump when the Atlantic City casinos were in the process of a huge financial failure in the 1990s. How Trump walked away making money and everyone else was in financial trouble and going bankrupt ... especially those in society who can least afford.
Trump is one of the most evil men in history. It is genius ... but evil genius!
The idea that all the legal costs seem to be paid by others and not Trump is the standard Trump playbook. Brilliant ... but completely wrong!
Peter Burgess
- Trump faces imminent cash crunch in legal fee accounts
- Wealthy donors, Republican party could pay for Trump’s lawyers
Written by Bill Allison
April 21, 2024 at 11:43 AM EDT
Donald Trump spent $4.9 million on legal fees in March and has just $6.8 million left in the accounts he’s been using to fund his lawyers, setting him up for a cash crunch as his trial costs mount, according to campaign finance filings.
That forces Trump, a criminal defendant in a trial underway in Manhattan, to find other sources of cash to defray the mounting costs of his court battles. Trump could seek to raise more money from donors, ask the Republican National Committee to cover the costs or pay for the fees from his own wealth. The RNC has said it won’t pay for Trump’s legal bills.
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Trump has so far been paying for lawyers from Save America, a leadership political action committee that can accept money from political donors. Save America has spent more than $62 million on legal fees since January 2023.
Save America ended March with about $4 million cash on hand. It can also request Trump’s allied super-PAC to refund $2.8 million remaining from donations it received from Save America in 2022.
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Trump’s legal woes make him unlike any previous candidate for the presidency. In three separate trials, he’s already been found liable for sexual abuse, defamation and financial fraud tied to his asset valuations. He also faces four more prosecutions, including two alleging he conspired to overturn the 2020 presidential election. His first criminal trial, over charges he falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn actress before the 2016 election, began last week.
Since securing the Republican nomination, Trump has been trying to narrow the financial advantage held by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, whose combined $192 million war chest at the end of March is twice the size of his own. But his ongoing legal battles continue to drain his coffers.
Trump’s allied super political action committee Make America Great Again Inc., raised $14 million a spent $6.3 million according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings. Campaign finance laws bar that group from directly funding Trump’s legal bills.
Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration in the first two years of Trump’s term, gave $5 million to MAGA Inc., while real estate and aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow gave $4.2 million. The super-PAC also got $50,000 from the PAC of a New Jersey local of the International Brotherhood Electrical Workers union.
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