One of Donald Trump’s main campaign fundraising groups on Monday reported spending more than US$21 million on legal expenses so far this year, a sign of the former president’s mounting legal problems as he seeks to return to the White House.
However, the sum reported was much less than major media had expected.
The Save America political action committee (PAC), which Trump founded in 2020 following his defeat in that year’s presidential election, said in a filing to the Federal Election Commission that it spent about US$30 million between January and June, with most of that going to legal expenses.
Save America is formally separate from Trump’s 2024 election campaign, but it has been a major funder of another group that is spending heavily on ads supporting Trump.
Several large U.S. media organizations, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, had reported over the weekend, citing anonymous sources, that Save America’s filing would show as much as US$40 million in spending on legal expenses.
Save America had previously reported spending more than US$16 million on legal expenses through 2022, though on Monday the group filed a number of amended reports on its finances for previous years.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the difference in the numbers reported over the weekend and those in Monday’s filing.
Save America is organized as a leadership PAC, which raise money from donors to support political campaigns in the United States.
Leadership PACs emerged in the 1970s as a way for elected officials and candidates to raise money for other political candidates, usually of the same political party, without using their own campaign funds.
The committees are set up and controlled by lawmakers or other political leaders, but are not connected to the candidate’s campaign, which are also not allowed to use the funds raised by such groups. However, leadership PAC funding has been used to cover administrative expenses such as travel, political consulting and polling.
Save America has collected hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from Trump supporters in the years since it was launched.
For weeks after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, the group bombarded supporters with a nonstop stream of text messages and emails that purported to raise money for an “election defense fund” that would be used to contest the election’s outcome.
But the US$170 million that the effort raised in less than a month was not used to contest the election, records show. Instead, it was used to pay down campaign debt and replenish the coffers of the Republican National Committee, with Trump also stockpiling another large chunk for his future political endeavors.
Last year, the U.S. Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee’s fundraising practices.
Since then, Save America has served as a different sort of “defense fund,” covering the legal expenses for Trump operatives, allies and employees who have been ensnared in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation.
Some of Save America’s money has been used to boost other candidates, though it’s a pittance compared to how much Trump has spent on ballooning legal costs.
As the 2022 midterm elections approached, Trump pledged to back congressional candidates loyal to him. But of the roughly US$65 million earmarked by Save America for political spending, less than a third — about US$20 million — was used to back midterm candidates through campaign contributions or paid advertising.
With additional files from Global News and the Associated Press
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