Donors are footing the lion’s share of the former president’s legal fees. Whether they care is a different story.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal battles may have fired up enough voters to keep him on top in the 2024 GOP presidential polls, but his campaign’s bank accounts appear to be spiraling downward as a result.
Several of Trump’s political action committees—particularly, the Save America PAC established to cover his legal expenses—racked up more than $40 million in legal expenses over the past six months. According to campaign finance reports filed late Monday evening, thetotal dwarfed the entire campaign budgets of several of his opponents and sent his campaign on a trajectory toward bankruptcy despite his history of strong fundraising.
The total was also substantially more than the roughly $3.23 million amassed by the PAC through the final six months of 2022—a sign that the indictments against Trump are beginning to add up in very real terms for the campaign.
According to the filings published Monday, Trump paid out 403 separate expenses for legal-related costs in the first half of 2023, with payments ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to California attorney Harmeet Dhillon—who defended Trump against inquiries by the Congressional Select Committee Investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.
