In a report from the New York Times, former President Donald Trump has been diverting money he has been raising for his 2024 presidential campaign into his Save America political action committee in order to pay his various legal fees.
The change was unannounced: where out of every dollar raised 99 cents went to his campaign and one cent went to Save America, the split was quietly switched to 90-10, and that has sent over $1.5 million dollars to Save America. In effect, his smaller donors are the ones paying for Trump’s astronomical (running in the millions) legal bills through his PAC.
“Because the campaign wants to ensure every dollar donated to President Trump is spent in the most cost-effective manner, a fair-market analysis was conducted to determine email list rentals would be more efficient by amending the fund-raising split between the two entities,” Mr. Cheung said in a written statement regarding the matter, citing the PAC’s contact list as a reason for the funding switch.
In general, a PAC cannot spend money directly on the candidate’s campaign, and a campaign committee cannot directly pay for things that personally benefit the candidate. That’s why Save America has been paying for bills related to various investigations into the former president and his allies for about a year before he decided to run again.
Save America had $122 million to its name in 2022, but by 2023 that number cratered to just $18 million. Staff salaries, political activity spending, a $60 million transfer to a super PAC called MAGA Inc., and more than $16 million for legal fees.
