Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.
Donald Trump dodged financial calamity on Monday. The office of Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and lawyers for Trump reached agreement in open court on the terms governing the appellate bond posted by the former president.
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Trump would no longer maintain any authority over the account. In turn, James remains barred from enforcing her $454m judgment against Trump and his businesses. For those keeping score, Trump is now out-of-pocket in a neighborhood north of a quarter of a billion dollars and counting.
His pretense of being cash-rich is soiled. In March, he shelled out for a separate $91.63m bond while he appeals the $83.3m verdict in the latest E Jean Carroll defamation case. Earlier, he paid another $4m into court to block Carroll from collecting a prior defamation judgment, also on appeal.
The stock price of Trump Media & Technology Group – his eponymous meme stock, DJT – is in the doldrums. Politico also reports that Save America, a Trump-controlled Pac, has already spent $59m on his legal fees and may run shortly out of money.
Beyond that, Trump World tussles with Ken Griffin, a major Republican donor and the chief of Citadel Securities, a leading Wall Street market-maker. Last Thursday, Devin Nunes – the former Republican congressman who resigned from the House to run Trump’s media company – wrote to the head of the Nasdaq, raising the issue of “potential market manipulation” of DJT stock and blasting “naked short-selling”.
Griffin, whose wealth is estimated at a cool $37bn, quickly struck back. He branded Nunes a “proverbial loser” whom Trump “would have fired on the Apprentice”. He also accused the humorless Californian of trying to deflect blame for DJT’s lackluster stock price.
A PAC controlled by former President Donald Trump that has devoted tens of millions of dollars to his and his allies’ legal bills could be running out of cash after spending nearly $3.7 million on legal fees in March.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, has now spent $59.5 million on legal consulting since the start of 2023. It also incurred $886,000 in new legal debt in March, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission late Saturday. More than $1.1 million of its March spending went toward two firms representing Trump in his New York criminal hush money trial.
The total spent on legal expenses for Save America was almost as much as Trump’s campaign committee in the month of March, highlighting how legal troubles have sucked up the cash of his political operation. Trump’s official campaign committee spent just over $3.7 million in March, with travel expenses, followed by payroll, occupying its biggest expenditure categories.
That total is minuscule compared to the more than $29 million that President Joe Biden’s campaign spent in March, with the incumbent launching a major ad campaign.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, was able to stay in the black in March due to another $5 million refund in March from Make America Great Again Inc., the Trump-backing super PAC. The super PAC has transferred $5 million to the leadership PAC each month going back to last July, with less regular transfers before then.
The leadership PAC initially seeded the super PAC with $60 million before he announced his candidacy. Now, MAGA Inc. can only send $2.75 million more back to Save America, raising questions about whether Save America will continue to be the vehicle to fund legal bills in several cases linked to Trump.
