120 million euros. This is the amount that Donald Trump would have spent since 2016 to cover his legal fees, according to a study published on August 4 by the organization OpenSecrets. This organization, which presents itself as “the first research group in the country to follow the money in American politics”, indicates that “130 million dollars” (the equivalent of 120 million euros) of funds from donors were used to allow the former US president to fund his run-ins with the law.
Of these 130 million dollars, 26.8 million were disbursed in attorney fees and other legal fees for the first six months of 2023. A sum already greater than the 23.3 million dollars spent in 2022.
But the most expensive year for Donald Trump was that of the last presidential race, in 2020, when the sums spent reached 37 million dollars. Already contesting the victory of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, Donald Trump had then created in November the political action committee “Save America Political Action Committee” (PAC), a fundraising structure allowing him to exercise financial influence at Washington once his presidency is over, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Claiming he needed the money to “fight widespread fraud” in the presidential race, Donald Trump has actually started fundraising for his 2024 campaign, reporter Dean Obeidallah reports on CNN. Subsequently, he allegedly diverted “a significant portion of the money raised online from his campaign coffers” to be allocated to the PAC, used to “pay lawyers for him and others” according to the New York. Times.
Emptied of its coffers, the “Save America” committee has reportedly requested a $60 million refund of a donation previously sent to a pro-Trump super PAC, reports the New York Times. This money was originally intended for “television advertisements” to support the candidacy of whoever wants to establish himself as the main candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024.
After being charged on Monday August 14 for attempting to manipulate the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump now faces four charges, on 91 counts. A record that does not seem to discourage his Republican voters, who placed him in mid-August at the top of the polls against his opponent Ron DeSantis. The former President of the Republic would gather 54% of voting intentions in the polls, ten points more than in March, and nearly 40 points ahead of his closest rival, the Governor of Florida, reports the organization RealClear Politics .
According to Anna Massoglia, author of the OpenSecrets investigation, “Donald Trump knows very well how to capitalize on his legal charges by representing these prosecutions as political persecution,” she told Le Parisien. In the two weeks since the former president was indicted in March, Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee raised more than $15 million, Politico reported.
Exorbitant amounts that do not fail to outrage. Recently, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, also up for the 2024 presidential nomination, called it “shameful” that Trump is using campaign donations to pay his personal legal fees. “He’s talking to the middle-class men and women of this country…who want him to be president again,” “they’re not giving this money so he can pay his personal legal fees,” he says on CNN.
