$60m and still counting as donors pay for Trump’s legal woes

As investigations pile up, Donald Trump’s political action committee has spent more on legal bills than his 2024 election campaign in the last six months.

Former US President Donald Trump has reportedly avoided putting his own money into his legal defence. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump’s small donor fund has spent more than $60 million on legal fees in the first half of the year as investigations pile up.

Trump’s fundraising arm, the Save America political action committee, has spent more on legal costs than any other item after raising cash from thousands of supporters based on appeals to fight election fraud and defeat “Crooked Joe” Biden.

Trump, 77, the former president, has reportedly avoided putting his own money into his legal defence against 34 state charges filed in Manhattan in March and 40 federal felonies over retaining classified documents. A grand jury investigating his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result is due to meet again tomorrow (Tuesday) in Washington as he waits to hear whether he will face further federal charges brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel. In Atlanta, barricades were installed last week around a courthouse where Trump’s attempts to influence the election outcome in Georgia are being investigated, with charges expected soon.

Save America is funding Trump’s defence and lawyers for his co-defendants in the documents case: Walt Nauta, his valet, and Carlos De Oliveira, property manager at Mar a Lago.

The group is expected to disclose about $60 million in legal spending in a half-year filing today (Monday), The Washington Post reported, bringing its total legal spending to about $82 million.

Save America, set up on November 9, 2020, two days after Biden was called as the winner in the 2020 presidential election, once held more than $150 million, initially raised from appeals to fight the election result.

Legal bills arising from the numerous investigations into Trump led it to seek a $90 million refund of money it donated to another fund, The New York Times reported. Save America began the year with $27 million in cash.

Other aides have been provided with financial help with legal representation for questioning by prosecutors or the congressional committee investigating the riot by Trump’s supporters on January 6, 2021.

In the classified documents case, a revised indictment last week detailed how Nauta had a conversation with an unnamed Trump employee to verify the loyalty of De Oliveira. Prosecutors allege that Trump called De Oliveira that day to offer to cover his legal costs.

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, ended her representation by a lawyer whom Save America was funding out of concern that he could pass details to Trump. She went on to tell Congress that Trump wanted metal detectors removed on January 6 and claimed that he had to be restrained while demanding that his driver take him to the Capitol as supporters marched there.

Trump has given the clearest sign yet that he will not take part in the first televised debate of candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president.

He asked the crowd at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night whether he should take part in the event in Milwaukee on August 23.

“Am I going to stand up there by guys with zero, one, two, three per cent, maybe four, and have them ask me hostile questions?” he asked. An average of polls by RealClearPolitics put Trump on 52.4 per cent of Republican voters, with Ron DeSantis on 18.4 per cent and Vivek Ramaswamy on 5.4 per cent.

The crowd responded with a loud chorus of “no” followed by cheers.

The Times