Trump racked up more legal bills in January that his political donors helped pay
By Fredreka Schouten and David Wright, CNN
(CNN) — Donald Trump’s leadership PAC paid out more than $2.9 million to law firms last month as his legal troubles mounted and racked up an additional $1.9 million in unpaid legal bills at the end of January, according to a filing Tuesday night with federal regulators.
Save America’s largest payment – more than $583,000 – went to the law firm of John Lauro, who is representing the former president in the federal election subversion case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
Save America, a political action committee seeded with money Trump raised after his 2020 loss, has been the primary vehicle for underwriting legal bills for Trump and some witnesses in the cases surrounding him.
Last year alone, Save America spent more than $55 million on legal bills, accounting for nearly 85% of its spending. Trump’s political operation has directed 10% of the money it raises online from his political supporters to Save America.
Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, faces 91 criminal indictments across four jurisdictions and owes hundreds of millions of dollars in legal penalties stemming from a pair of judgments in civil cases. He has vowed to appeal.
The former president, who has baselessly cast the legal cases as part of a vast political witch hunt, on Tuesday suggested he is being politically persecuted in the same fashion as Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a Russian prison last week.
In a Fox News town hall Tuesday night, Trump said it was “a form of Navalny” when asked about how he would pay the nearly $355 million – not counting interest – that he and his companies were ordered to pay in his New York civil fraud trial.
“It is a form of Navalny, it is a form of communism or fascism,” Trump said.
CNN’s Alex Leeds Matthews and Kate Sullivan contributed to this story.
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