The Big Number: Former President Donald Trump’s political action committee has spent $40.2 million on legal fees in this year’s first half, according to multiple published reports citing unnamed sources.
The PAC, called Save America, is expected to disclose the spending in a filing on Monday with the Federal Election Commission.
What it means: The outlays show the sizable legal challenges that Trump and his associates have been dealing with.
The 45th president, who has a big lead in polls for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, was indicted in March in a Manhattan case focused on hush-money payments, as well as indicted in June in a Miami case focused on classified documents. In addition, he could get indicted in Washington, D.C., in a case focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and in a separate probe in Georgia’s Fulton County over election interference, and he was found liable in May for sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit.
What people are saying: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an outspoken Trump critic who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, criticized their race’s frontrunner for not using his own money for the legal expenses that he and his associates are incurring.
“He’s making regular Americans pay his legal fees. It’s outrageous,” Christie said over the weekend in a CNN interview.
But Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told CNN that the spending is needed, saying that “to protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed, the leadership PAC contributed to their legal fees to ensure they have representation against unlawful harassment.”
Trump’s team is now setting up a legal defense fund to help handle some of the legal fees, according to other published reports citing unnamed sources.
Now read: Facing legal peril, Trump calls on Republicans to rally around him as he threatens primary challengers
And see: Trump and his top 2024 primary rivals mostly ignore new federal charges against him during Iowa GOP event
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