WASHINGTON – Self-described billionaire Donald Trump sent another $4.3 million collected from his donors to his lawyers in the weeks surrounding the Nov. 5 election.
That raises the total his “Save America” committee ― ostensibly created to help like-minded Republicans win elections ― spent on the attorneys handling Trump’s various criminal and civil cases to $90.8 million, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission records.
A post-election filing by Save America this week showed that the firms of John Lauro, Alina Habba and Chris Kise were among the recipients. The $2,403,043 to Lauro on Nov. 25 accounted for more than half of the total. Trump still had $780,000 in outstanding legal bills, according to that document.
Other filings show that Trump’s “Never Surrender” committee he created in the days after the election — which, like Save America is a “leadership” PAC, essentially allowing Trump to spend the money however he wants — was actually a renaming and restructuring of his 2024 presidential campaign account.
Solicitations to Trump donors, meanwhile, show that Never Surrender will now get only 20 cents of each dollar raised, with 80 cents going to the Republican National Committee. That split was the reverse in the initial days after the election, with 80 cents of each dollar going to Trump’s committee, which he can use to continue paying his legal bills.
It is unclear why the allocation formula was altered. No explanation was offered on the fundraising entity’s website, and the Trump transition did not respond to a HuffPost query.
One informal Trump adviser close to the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the new allocation could mean that Trump will be able to get the RNC to pay his legal bills now that he is about to become president again.
The original committee Trump used for that purpose, Save America, was down to only $640,000 in the bank at the end of the Nov. 25 reporting period.
Never Surrender has about $3.2 million in the bank overall and is entitled to some portion of the likely millions raised by Trump’s fundraising operation after Nov. 6, although how much cannot be determined because it is unclear exactly when the allocation formula between Never Surrender and the RNC was altered.
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In the two months following his 2020 election loss, Trump raised about a quarter of a billion dollars by lying to his followers that the election was rigged and had been stolen from him. At first, the donations had been going to his campaign and the RNC, but Trump started diverting the majority of the money to Save America.
He then attempted a coup to remain in power, culminating in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Despite that and the criminal prosecutions that resulted, he won reelection to the presidency last month and is set to take office on Jan. 20.