Opinion: Why are Trump’s donors paying for his legal fees?

CNN

Opinion by Dean Obeidallah

(CNN) — Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him on Threads at www.threads.net/@deanobeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

Legal fees for defending yourself in one criminal case can be pricey — I can say that firsthand as a former trial lawyer. Now multiply that in former President Donald Trump’s case by two jurisdictions — New York state and federal court in Florida — totaling 74 felony charges against him.

And Trump may need representation in two other jurisdictions: in Washington, DC, where a federal grand jury deliberates on the special counsel’s investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and in Fulton County, Georgia, where prosecutors are probing alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results there after he lost.

Trump’s political action committee, Save America, has spent more than $40 million on legal fees since the start of 2023, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The PAC also shelled out $16 million-plus on legal costs the previous year, Federal Election Commission records show. Trump’s team says the money is being used to defend the former president as well as some of his aides and allies.

“In order to combat these heinous actions by Joe Biden’s cronies and to protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed, the leadership PAC contributed to their legal fees to ensure they have representation against unlawful harassment,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told CNN.

These off-the-chart legal costs may help explain this weekend’s reporting from The New York Times that Save America recently requested a refund on a $60 million contribution it made to another group. (It appears that a more accurate name for the PAC should be “Save Trump from Prison.” Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges in both the state and federal cases.)

The enormous costs have apparently become such an issue that Trump’s team is creating a legal defense fund to cover the mounting bills, CNN reported Sunday night, citing two sources familiar with the planning.

Keep in mind Trump began raising funds for the Save America PAC after he lost the 2020 election by seeking — as the Times noted — “small-dollar donations” based on the claim he needed the money to fight widespread fraud in the race. Of course, no evidence of such fraud was ever found.

As time went on, Trump began raising funds for his 2024 campaign. However, he later began diverting a larger percentage of every dollar he raised online away from his election campaign coffers and into the PAC, which is being used to pay for lawyers for him and other people, according to the Times.

As a result, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — who also is vying for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — recently slammed Trump’s funneling of money that donors gave to his campaign to pay his personal legal fees as “disgraceful.”

“He’s going to middle-class men and women in this country, and they’re donating $15, $25, $50, $100 because they believe in Donald Trump and they want him to be president again,” Christie said. “They’re not giving that money so he can pay his personal legal fees.”

The Times has reported that campaign finance experts are divided on whether Trump can continue to use the PAC to pay for his personal legal bills, given that he formally became a presidential candidate in November.  However, Paul Seamus Ryan, a campaign finance expert, recently told The Washington Post he did not see any “legal red flags” with the PAC paying Trump’s fees.

“At the end of the day it’s up to the donors to decide if that’s the way they want their money spent,” Ryan told the Post. “My sense is if you’re giving money to Trump in 2023, you’re fine with it.”

Christie and Ryan are both right. It is disgraceful that Trump is using funds from small donors that they believed would fund his campaign for his own personal legal woes. But at the same time, I don’t hear any Trump supporters complaining that the money is being used to fund his legal defense.

It may be because Trump repeatedly tells his followers — as he did again at a rally Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania — that the justice system is “weaponized” against him and next it’s coming for them. Trump bellowed that very point to the crowd Saturday: “They’re not indicting me. They’re indicting you. I’m just standing in the way.” He then added to big cheers, “They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. I will not let that happen.”

We don’t know how many Trump supporters believe his outrageous — bordering on laughable — words. We are not dealing with people moved by facts — they are only moved by what Trump tells them.

However, back on planet Earth, even Trump grasps that campaign dollars are both limited and precious. In fact, during his rally Saturday, Trump called on the other GOP presidential candidates to end their respective campaigns and rally behind him, declaring, “Every dollar spent attacking me by Republicans is a dollar given straight to the Biden campaign.” He added that his competitors are “wasting hundreds of millions of dollars that Republicans should be using to build a massive vote-gathering operation” to take on Biden in November 2024.

The same obviously can be said about Trump spending more than $56 million and counting in campaign donations for the legal defense of him and others in his orbit. And that is even before his lawyers have prepared for various trials — which can be exorbitantly expensive. And worse for Trump, President Joe Biden raised $72 million in his first quarter of fundraising since announcing his reelection bid in April — double the more than $35 million that the former president brought in during the second quarter of 2023.

Trump will of course paint himself as the victim and raise money from supporters off being indicted. But even Trump knows the more he spends on legal fees, the less he has for his 2024 campaign. The question is how much more money will Trump donors give to keep him out of jail as opposed to helping the GOP win the White House in 2024?

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