Donald Trump Spending Campaign Donors' Money on Legal Fees, Still Trails Joe Biden on Fundraising

Donald Trump's legal battles are already draining his campaign's money, spending over a quarter of campaign donations on legal fees alone.

Despite his rampant efforts to charge up his base to donate money to his campaign, as well as his constant courting of conservative megadonors, he still lags behind possible opponent Joe Biden as his legal fees are starting to drain his coffers.

Since January 2023, the former president has used over $76 million of his donors' money on his legal bills. This is about 26% of the total money he raised for his presidential campaign, showing that his constant court battles have started to take a financial toll on his campaign to take back the White House.

As the Financial Times noted, Donald Trump is not just facing four criminal trials but also a slew of civil trials, some of the latter he already lost, including the E. Jean Carrol rape case and the New York fraud case. The first criminal case, the porn star hush money case, considered the least impactful of his criminal cases, is now underway in New York.

Despite lagging behind Biden in donations, Trump supporters, including the ultra-rich, remain positive, with Trevor Traina, a Trump donor who served as Trump's US ambassador to Austria, claiming that the next fundraising report "will tell a very different story" as it includes the fundraiser where several megadonors were involved.

"Even though he was in the lead, Trump had to make it through a primary," Traina added. "Biden has had the benefit of leading his party and all its apparatus."

Trump has mostly relied on smaller donations from his rabid base, and this has kept him ahead of his Republican rivals in the primary. However, his supporters may be running out of money as there are 270,000 fewer unique donors at this stage in the campaign, which is far less than he had four years ago.

How Much Did the Joe Biden and Donald Trump Campaigns Raise

Joe Biden has raised around $413 million as opposed to Trump, who has only raised $326 million; Biden also has $188 million on hand while the Trump campaign has $122 million.

As Politico noted, while both campaigns have a lot of fundraising vehicles, the Biden campaign is light years ahead of Trump's, according to Politico. This is largely seen on the campaign spending as the incumbent n spent $29.2 million in March, with $21.8 million going to advertising. Meanwhile, Trump spent just $3.7 million on direct campaign activities, with much gpomh to his legal fees.

Donald Trump Campaign Spending More Than It Raises

Donald Trump's legal fees are largely paid for by his Save America PAC which uses money from small donors, mostly his supporters. It is separate from the Trump campaign but this has been the former president's largest fundraising group before he announced his candidacy. However, the group only made just over $10,000 from donors in March.

Trump spent $3.6 million on legal fees alone, according to Reuters, and despite being classified as a billionaire, he is having his supporters foot that bill. Despite the huge disparity between how much Save America made and how much it spent on legal fees, the rest was actually covered by a $5 million refund of money it had previously given a super PAC backing Trump's campaign known as MAGA Inc.

Since the start of 2023, Save America has spent over $59 million on Trump's legal fees.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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