If you’re a MAGA supporter doling out your hard-earned bucks to Donald Trump, you may be wondering what’s happening to your political donations
Trump’s campaign and Political Action Committees rake in donations every day, many of them from retirees who think they’re acting to “save America” or pursue political goals relating to the border, taxes, and crime. Or perhaps they’re just ordering a hat to announce their vote to the world.
Whatever they think they’re buying, the truth is that a heap of their money is being used by Trump to defend himself in courts.
While he started out in 2015 with promises to fund his own campaign, and indeed poured a mass of his own cash into his initial bid for president, that has changed.
Now he’s not paying for his own campaign and reportedly isn’t even paying for his lawyers out of his own pocket.
In 2023, Trump’s Save America PAC spent around $50 million on legal fees — including paying for attorneys and for witnesses in some cases — raising questions of possible conflicts of interest.
Meanwhile, Trump is shifting donations from other funds, keeping that one ready to leap to his defense. The New York Times reported:
“But with Save America’s coffers nearly drained last year, Mr. Trump sought to refill them through a highly unusual transaction: He asked for a refund of $60 million that he had initially transferred to a different group, a pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc., to support his 2024 campaign…In addition, Mr. Trump has been directing 10 percent of donations raised online to Save America, meaning 10 cents of every dollar he has received from supporters is going to a PAC that chiefly funds his lawyers.”
To put that plainly: Save America PAC is paying legal bills for Trump.
MAGA Inc handed another $60 million back to Save America, instead of using it on campaigns and to support candidates. A portion of every online donation is being funneled back to the one PAC that’s paying the legal costs.
Those costs could be about to skyrocket, too. The E. Jean Carroll case, in which Trump was found liable for defaming a woman he had raped decades before, came back with an $83 million verdict, and even if Trump chooses to appeal, he’s got to fork over a percentage of that to secure his bond.
Meanwhile, his financial fraud case could remove his ability to operate businesses in New York, further breaking the bank.
And then, of course, his criminal cases have barely begun.
So, who’s paying for all that? As of the middle of last year, more than half of the personal donations to Trump were coming from people who described themselves as retirees, according to the Washington Post.
How much further will it go before America’s grandpas and grandmas decide that actually, they don’t want their social security checks to help defend a man whom a jury found to be a sexual-assaulter, one whom a court found to be cheating on financial forms to further enrich himself, someone who has a fair chance of being a felon when his cases come to completion?
He’ll spend it as long as they send it.
