Trump leadership PAC’s soaring legal bills outstrip what it raised last month
By Fredreka Schouten, David Wright and Alex Leeds Matthews, CNN
(CNN) — Donald Trump’s leadership PAC spent more on legal expenses than it took in last month, a new filing shows – underscoring the steep financial toll of the myriad legal cases the former president faces.
The Save America leadership political action committee – which Trump has used as a vehicle to help underwrite lawyers’ fees incurred by him and allies – spent nearly $5.6 million on legal bills in February, according to a Wednesday night filing with the Federal Election Commission.
Those expenses exceeded Save America’s total receipts, most of which came in the form of a $5 million refund that the PAC received from a Trump-aligned super PAC, MAGA Inc. In all, Save America has clawed back more than $52 million from the super PAC, diverting resources from an account intended to support Trump’s presidential bid to one that pays his legal bills.
Trump currently faces 88 criminal charges in four jurisdictions and is also scrambling to secure a half-a-billion-dollar bond ahead of a looming deadline to appeal his civil fraud case in New York.
In addition to the legal bills Save America paid last month, the filing shows Trump still owed about $530,000 at the end of February to the law firm of Alina Habba, who represented him in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Save America ended February with about $4 million remaining in the bank.
A joint fundraising committee that Trump’s campaign recently launched with the Republican National Committee and nearly 40 state parties will set aside a share of the money it collects to benefit Save America, potentially helping replenish some of its coffers as Trump stages more high-dollar fundraising events heading into the general election.
A Trump campaign official said Wednesday that the campaign together with a different joint fundraising operation brought in $20.3 million in February and entered this month with a combined $41.9 million cash on hand. But the amounts trail far behind the $53 million that President Joe Biden and Democrats previously announced raising in February and the massive $155 million in available cash that Biden’s team said it amassed with its affiliated committees.
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