Campaign

Trump leadership PAC spent nearly $3M on legal expenses in January

Former President Donald Trump leaves Manhattan criminal court, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in New York. A New York judge says Trump’s hush-money trial will go ahead as scheduled with jury selection starting on March 25. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Former President Trump’s Save America leadership PAC spent nearly $3 million on legal consulting last month, according to new filings, as the Republican front-runner campaigns amid multiple ongoing legal battles. 

Filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show Save America, which is Trump’s main joint fundraising committee with his campaign, paid out roughly $2.9 million marked as legal consulting expenses in January. 

The largest payment, coming in at more than half a million dollars, went to the law firm of John Lauro, the lawyer handling Trump’s federal case on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

Additional debt filings show Save America owes another $1.9 million in outstanding legal costs. 

The new numbers add to the staggering sum that Trump’s political machine has had to pay as he faces multiple criminal indictments along the campaign trail. His fundraising committees spent a whopping $30 million in legal fees during the second half of last year, for roughly $50 million across the full year.  

The former president is running for another term in the Oval Office amid 91 criminal charges across four state and federal criminal indictments, plus additional civil lawsuits.  

He’s on track to score the GOP nomination but faces mounting legal fees and risks derailment by his courtroom obligations.

The monthly report for his principal campaign committee shows Trump brought in nearly $9 million in January and ended with $30 million cash on hand — eclipsing Nikki Haley, his lone GOP challenger, who brought in more than $11 million but ended with around $13 million cash on hand. 

President Biden’s campaign brought in $15 million in January. Together with fundraising from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and joint fundraising committees between the two, Biden ended the month with roughly $130 million in cash on hand.

Tags 2024 presidential election campaign fundraising Donald Trump FEC Joe Biden Nikki Haley

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