Donating Money For Trump’s Legal Fees? Here’s Where Donations May Actually Be Going

The Trump campaign has added new language in emails to supporters asking for donations intended for legal challenges to the presidential election. All donations under $8,000 to the Republican National Committee and the "Save America" PAC can essentially be spent on whatever the groups want, according to a Reuters report.

The body of the emails and texts the Trump campaign has sent out in waves, sometimes hourly, emphatically states that the money is needed to mount legal challenges to election results. The emails contain lines like, “The left will try to steal this election!” and urges supporters to make recurring donations to the “official election defense fund.”

The fine print, however, potentially puts the money to other use. Save America — a newly established Trump leadership PAC — receives 60% of it. The rest goes to the Republican National Committee. Neither is committed to spending the money on legal defense.

Only after Save America receives $5,000 and the RNC receives $3,300 would any money go to Trump’s legal defense fund. Donations to that fund are capped at $2,800.

Previous emails had also diverted the money away from legal fees, devoting large portions to paying off Trump’s debts. The new language was added Monday after Trump’s campaign treasurer Bradley Crate incorporated Save America.

Representatives from the Trump campaign did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, but a prominent North Carolina Republican was willing to anonymously comment on similar tactics by the North Carolina Republican Party.

“They should be more transparent,” the source said. “If they are soliciting money to help with a legal challenge, and instead the money is going to pay the salary of the political director, that doesn’t seem right.”

Larry Noble, former general counsel at the FEC, told Reuters that Trump could use the money sent to the Save America fund to pay for an ongoing political career if he wanted to.

“He’s really making a big deal about the challenge to the election, and that may very well be why a lot of people may give without paying attention to, or understanding, what the political language is,” Noble said. “It’s pretty dangerous to our democracy to use attacking our elections as a fundraising tool.”