Trump’s criminal and civil cases cost him nearly $40 million in legal fees in the months since he was indicted for the first time in March 2023, according to filings from his leadership PAC Save America, as the ex-president used donor funds last year to battle cases that are only set to escalate before the 2024 election.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on Jan. 27 in Las Vegas.
Trump’s leadership PAC Save America—which is paying the bulk of the ex-president’s legal fees—spent approximately $53 million between March 30, 2023, the date of Trump’s first indictment, and the end of 2023, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, with $38.9 million of that money spent specifically on legal consulting and other legal-related services.
That compares to $25.2 million that was spent on legal consulting between Nov. 2020, when Trump first formed the PAC in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and March 29, 2023—with $8.4 million of that spent during the first three months of 2023, right before the first charges against Trump were brought.
Trump’s largest legal payments went to Christopher Kise, who represents Trump in his civil fraud case and his criminal case for retaining White House documents, and Kise’s legal associates, with Save America paying Chris Kise & Associates $3.3 million and Continental PLLC, a law firm employing Kise and other lawyers representing Trump, $3.6 million between March 30 and December 31, 2023.
Other attorneys representing Trump in his criminal cases were paid by Save America PAC, records show: Attorneys at Blanche Law, representing Trump in multiple criminal cases, earned $2.3 million; John Lauro, representing Trump in his federal election case, earned $2.6 million; Georgia election case attorney Steven Sadow took in $1.5 million and Susan Necheles, Trump’s lawyer in his Manhattan “hush money” case, earned $950,555, among other payments.
Trump attorney Alina Habba’s firm Habba Madaio & Associates, which represents Trump in cases including his civil fraud trial and E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him, was paid $3.2 million, while Dhillon Law Group, representing Trump in 14th Amendment cases seeking to disqualify him from the ballot, took in $579,408 in payments through Save America and additional payments through Trump’s campaign.
Save America’s legal-related fees also include other payments, such as more than $900,000 to NYU accounting professor Eli Bartov, who appeared as an expert witness at Trump’s civil fraud trial, and paying $340,000 in May to a vendor holding ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani’s electronic records, in order to help the former mayor pay his debts.
Save America has $5.1 million in cash as it goes into 2024, when Trump is expected to face criminal trials in potentially all four of the cases against him. He faces two federal trials, one for trying to overturn the 2020 election and another for retaining classified White House documents after leaving office, as well as a trial in Manhattan for “hush-money” payments made during his 2016 campaign and a state case in Georgia for his post-2020 election efforts. (The ex-president has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.) Trump has also already faced a civil trial against writer E. Jean Carroll so far in 2024, as well as the end of the fraud trial against him and his company, and will go to the Supreme Court next week to challenge a Colorado ruling kicking him off the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment. It won’t be known how much Trump has spent in 2024 so far until the PAC’s next filing with the FEC later this year.
Save America raised $52.3 million in 2023, according to its FEC filing, with most money coming from either small-money donors or transfers made from Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC and the Trump campaign. Online donors to Trump’s campaign are told 10% of their donation will go toward Save America. Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow—who previously made a $20 million gift to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ now-terminated campaign—told Reuters Tuesday he donated $1 million to cover Trump’s legal fees “a few weeks ago.” The New York Times notes it’s unclear where that money is actually going, however, given limits on PAC donations that only allow sums of up to $5,000. That means Bigelow couldn’t simply donate $1 million to Save America, the Times notes, and the donor and Trump campaign haven’t offered any clarity on where the funds are being directed.
Campaign finance experts told Forbes that Trump using PAC money to pay his personal legal fees is a “highly questionable” legal gray area, though one that Trump can likely get away with. While campaign money isn’t allowed to be spent on personal expenses, the FEC has ruled that doesn’t apply to leadership PACs like Save America. But Dan Weiner, former FEC counsel and director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, told Forbes that paying Trump’s legal fees could still constitute an illegal contribution to Trump’s campaign, although Weiner noted the FEC “does not have a history of aggressively enforcing the law when there’s any sort of gray area,” and the Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute unless there’s evidence Trump knew the spending was illegal. “Because of lax enforcement, we have this kind of ‘Wild West’ campaign finance landscape, where there are a bunch of rules, but they are so unevenly enforced that people don’t have a good sense of what they can and can’t do, and that’s obviously a breeding ground for pushing the envelope,” Weiner said.
Trump’s remaining rival in the GOP primary election, Nikki Haley, has pointed to the ex-president’s ballooning legal fees to attack him as a candidate. Trump “can’t beat Joe Biden if he’s spending all his time and money on court cases and chaos,” Haley tweeted Tuesday, after the New York Times reported on Save America’s legal spending prior to the FEC report being filed.
On top of his payments to lawyers, Trump also faces the growing issue of having to pay out high-dollar amounts in his civil cases. A jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her on Friday, and New York state Judge Arthur Engoron is set to issue a verdict in the coming days in Trump’s fraud trial, which could result in him having to pay up to $370 million plus interest. The payments could take a significant hit on Trump’s finances, as Forbes estimates the ex-president had $426 million in cash and liquid assets as of September. While Save America’s $5 million in cash means it couldn’t meaningfully help pay off those debts, it remains to be seen if Trump will try to use any part of his campaign funds on the damages awards, or try to raise funds through his PAC in order to pay them. “I don’t think it’s legal for the PAC to pay the damages award, but I worry that his lawyers will take the position that it can,” Weiner told Forbes. “There’s enough gray area that they might feel they have enough legal coverage to proceed.”
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