Former President Donald Trump’s leadership political action committee funneled nearly $3 million last month to the Republican front-runner’s court fights, new federal campaign finance filings show, with fines from recent rulings amounting to nearly half a billion dollars.
Save America PAC disclosed late Tuesday that it spent $2,953,655 on legal consulting, fees and other expenses last month, making up most of its nearly $3.9 million in total disbursements in the first month of this election year.
The lion’s share of those funds were paid to Trump attorneys Todd Blanche, Chris Kise, John Lauro and Alina Habba, the last of whom also serves as a senior adviser at another pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.
That committee accounted for almost all of Save America’s incoming donations in January with a Jan. 3 transfer of $5 million. In 2023, MAGA Inc. covered the mounting legal fees with a $42 million transfer.
Both PACs spent more than $50 million in total last year on Trump’s legal defense against four criminal indictments and two civil suits and ended the year with a combined $8.4 million cash on hand.
In the last two months, Manhattan courts have ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages for defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and a massive $355 million for inflating his real estate empire in New York state.
Save America had roughly $6.3 million cash on hand as of Jan. 31, days after the defamation ruling, while MAGA Inc., which spent only $9,000 on legal fees, had almost $20 million.
The former president’s principal campaign committee also recorded more than $30 million cash on hand as of month’s end, after raising nearly $9 million.
On Friday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and his company, the Trump Organization, to pay $355 million in fines and potentially $95 million more in interest for exaggerating his net worth in financial statements.
A Jan. 26 Manhattan jury verdict had forced the 77-year-old to pay the $83.3 million to Carroll after an earlier jury proceeding had awarded the advice columnist $5 million, which Trump has already transferred to the court.
He also owes $110,000 for refusing to comply with a subpoena in the business fraud suit and $15,000 for maligning Engoron’s law clerk — despite having a gag order imposed at the time.
The former president is seeking to appeal all the recent rulings but will likely have to sell some of his New York properties to pay a portion of the civil fines already imposed.
That doesn’t even begin to cover the costs of mounting a defense against the federal, state and local charges Trump is facing for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election, unlawfully retaining classified material and falsifying business records to conceal “hush money” payments before his first run for the White House in 2016.
Meanwhile, President Biden is far outraising his opponent, according to recent campaign filings, with the chief executive’s primary campaign committee boasting $56 million cash on hand.
The Democrat’s campaign also announced $42 million in donations last month across all committees backing his re-election — and an immense $130 million war chest.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the last major Republican opposing Trump in the 2024 presidential race, also outraised him in January, earning $11.5 million in campaign donations compared with Trump’s $8.8 million.
“It doesn’t matter how many gold sneakers Donald Trump sells, his endless drama and legal bills will deplete the Republican Party and bring even more electoral losses,” Haley communications director Nachama Soloveichik said, referring to the new golden sneakers the former president has hawked for $399 a pair following the business fraud verdict.
“Donald Trump promised Republicans would get ‘tired of all the winning,’” Soloveichik said. “Well, he got one thing right. Republicans are tired … of losing.”