For the third quarter in a row, Donald Trump’s former campaign posted a loss in fundraising, dropping $1.2 million in early 2022. And the reason for most of the campaign’s money problems. Trump is a familiar person: the lawyer.
According to a campaign finance disclosure filed in recent days, the committee—“Make America Great Again PAC”—has collected more than about $1.1 million in legal fees since January. to the end of March.
That’s more than 40% of the PAC’s total cost of $2.6 million, for the PAC’s biggest deficit since Trump left office. The $1.4 million it raised barely covers its legal bills.
The loss slashed MAGA PAC’s cash balance from about $6.66 million at the end of the year to about $5.47 million as of March 31. The committee that Trump converted from his old campaign after leaving office, now holds about half of the $10.7 million it originally had. of the year 2021.
In the first half of the year, in the face of election challenges and the impeachment trial, MAGA PAC ate up most of Trump’s political legal costs — approx. $7.8 million out of a total of 8 million dollars. Payments fell sharply in the second half of 2021, with a total of $1.7 million spread over those six months, suggesting another increase will begin in 2022.
The biggest winner this quarter was Jesse Binnall, Trump’s top election challenger, whose company hit $410,000 for his services. Binnall assigned some of those fees to local attorneys, who were not named in the report. One such company is the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hall Estill store, which Binnall retained last year to support. an ongoing lawsuit alleged civil rights violations at Trump’s return to COVID rally in June 2020.
MAGA PAC also pays its practice retainer to Elections LLC, a joint venture between three former top campaign aides that now commands $52,500 a month. (Trump’s Save America joint fundraising committee also retained Elections LLC.)
Combined, Elections LLC and Binnall’s company — consisting of anonymous local subcontractors — collected more than half of its legal costs during the quarter.
Attorney fees skyrocketed after drop out significantly last year. That drop coincided with an increase in the cost of the Republican National Committee, after the GOP agreed paid Trump’s legal costs in the ongoing investigations into his business practices — up to $1.6 million.
The remainder of MAGA PAC’s $2.6 million expense report includes the committee’s largest expenditure: $590,000 to a company called 2M Document Management and Image, LLC, itemized for “research consulting”.
In total, the Delaware-based clandestine legal entity pocketed about $1.17 million last quarter, nearly reaching a total of $1.6 million in 2021. No other political committee has ever paid. for the company, by federal data.
Trump’s tripartite fundraising streams can be hard to track. Last week, there was a submit in addition to the MAGA PAC, this is from the joint fundraising vehicle Trump shares with the RNC, called Save America — the same name as his leadership PAC. That group raised a total of $19 million this quarter, which is split between the Trump and RNC teams.
However, unlike the MAGA PAC, the joint committee heads. It raked in about $8.6 million in operating costs, less than half the total. Most of that money goes to fundraising consultants and advertisers, and unlike MAGA PACs reports no legal fees—other than $20,000 monthly for Elections LLC. The commission currently holds about $6.4 million.
But we won’t have a complete picture of Trump’s finances until later this week, when his biggest account – the Save America PAC leadership, with $110 million in the bank – files its monthly reports. . We know it has raised at least $5.1 million in new transfers from the joint committee.
But all the while, one MAGA PAC payment stands out and is particularly curious: a rent paid to Trump Tower.
Although the amount is the normal monthly amount of $37,541.67, there is only one payment instead of the expected three. And it went to a curious destination—not Trump Tower itself, but a post office box in Hicksville, New York, a Long Island town an hour from Fifth Avenue.
Check out the campaign rent that has been vacant for years between Trump Tower and Hicksville, seemingly at random, with No explanation. That mailbox, however, is a short distance from Trump’s longtime accountants, Mazars USA.
The last MAGA PAC rent check was done on February 11. Three days later, the Mazars reduction Trump as a client, citing unreliable financial reports.
