Trump’s PAC Has Just $5 Million in the Bank After Blowing $50 Million on Legal Fees

DevCat@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 439 points –
Trump’s PAC Has Just $5 Million in the Bank After Blowing $50 Million on Legal Fees
mediaite.com

Donald Trump’s political operation is reeling after spending around $60 million on legal fees pertaining to the four criminal indictments and various ongoing civil lawsuits against him.

Disclosures indicate that Trump’s campaign and the various political action committees supporting it blew through tens of millions of dollars in 2023, leaving him cash-strapped heading into 2024.

Save America PAC, Trump’s primary PAC heading into his likely rematch with President Joe Biden, once had over $100 million in the bank. Now, it has just a little over $5 million left after spending over $25 million on legal bills in the second half of last year alone.

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And Trump's donations have sucked all the air out of the room for all GOP candidates, state parties, etc. They're throwing the 2024 war chest down the endless hole of Trump's legal problems. Isn't he supposed to be a billionaire?

Yeah, as literally every developer in NY said for years. Even before his presidential run:

"How do you make $1M in real estate?"

A: Give Trump $100M.

Trump's supposed wealth was always mostly marketing. Being a billionaire was literally his brand image.

It’s a lot like how Elron Musk theoretically is worth billions, but still feels the need to run funny schemes on doge coin. He can’t sell substantial amounts and get cash without reducing the Tesla share price and thus his overall net worth even more than what he took out.

Not wholy true, he might not be able to sell his stocks but he can take out loans against them for money.

It's the Buy, Borrow, Die Strategy, and how they avoid taxes as well. He's not poor he doesn't need to grift and he has all the liquid money he could ever need for a thousand life times...

Elton still does feel the need to do shit like pump Dogecoin though. Maybe it’s just for the thrill of scamming people.

He's a billionaire because he doesn't spend his own money. He spends someone else's.

24 more...

What wonderful news to start my day

Holy fuck he's paying his own legal bills from campaign money? I guess it's not illegal.

He had the RNC paying them for a while. Supposedly what he’s doing now is okay because his website says that’s where the money is going.

Way to many things about campaigning and financing are not illegal, and that needs to get fixed.

Oh, yeah, that'd be great, but corporations are people. Except in terms of wage theft, unsafe working conditions, or dangerous products. There's nobody to put in jail for those, nothing we can do, sorry!

No worries, he'll release some more NFT trading cards for $2-300 a pop and he'll sell a shit ton of them because his followers are fucking dumbshits. Bitch and moan about the economy but then buy his crap.

"Biden's economy is so bad that I can't pay my Trump bill this month!"

/s, obviously

How is it legal for him to use funds raised for a political campaign on his personal legal fees? Isn't this a kind of fraud or something?

Legally - Trump can't use the super PAC funds at all. The super PAC decides what it does with the money. The PAC chose to pay the legal fees... However - we all know behind closed doors there is plenty of communication about what that money is used for...

At least that is my understanding of super pacs

Edit: it's not a super PAC sorry, just a PAC. I'm not a Pac-Man so I got confused. Wakka wakka.

He's gonna need to sell a whole lot more digital trading cards to refill the coffers. I wonder how many times he can do that scam and still have it work.

Forever because his supporters are mindless drones that do as he demands. Much like those mega churches both are cults.

I wonder if churches are seeing a loss in their profitsdonations and might turn against their orange God.

Long term they're screwed without a fascist takeover so they're probably fine with it

State Republican organizations have recently been having financial problems in part because people donate directly to Trump vs them.

"vlad, ol buddy, o pal-o-mine.. i need some money."

"me too," replies the russian. "nyet!"

Maybe he should stop harassing his rape victim.

Hurr hurr hurr hurr..

As with any war, strategy takes a back seat to logistics, and logistics take a back seat to financing.

Can't win a war with out money for lunchables for the crayon eaters (love you). Go after the sources of funding and the game gets real, real quick.

A butchered quote from my favorite book on strategy:

The worst is to go after their fortresess, and the next worse to go after their soldiers in the field.

Beyond that it is better to go after their ability to organize, their logistics. Better even, to go after their alliances and finances.

Best of all is to win in the field of their ideas themselves.

People pay Trump because of a parasocial relationship where they believe they are having some effect. If they see that money as being lit on fire for Trumps failed court proceedings, this is an oppurtunity to drive a wedge between Trump and what he needs so much to keep his, likely absurd, burn rate going. Go after his relationships.

Best of all is to win in the field of their ideas themselves.

"A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place." - Gul Dukat

They blew the entire war chest on legal fees and he still can’t afford to pay his lawyers.

It would have been a lot cheaper to just, you know, not incite an insurrection and defraud investors and sexually abuse women.

He should just squeeze his base for more cash. They don't mind.

He literally could not afford to not run for President, no matter what effects that has upon the nation (especially if he wins).

It's funny, if he never decided to run for president, he could have kept scamming people and assaulting women until he died and no one would have really cared.

Now he's in a position where he has to run again, because it's the only thing that can save him from the consequences of the first time he ran.

This is why I think the "rich white people never face consequences" crowd have it wrong. They tend not to face consequences because they have lawyers to find loopholes in the first place, and then they make sure to keep it all out of the public eye, and then if they do get noticed, they listen to those lawyers and don't do things to perjure themselves.

Trump failed at every one of those.

I know what you mean - in many ways he's a victim himself, even though he's also a cause, both of his own suffering, as well as ours. But it's the system that is screwed up, not (just) him.

Time to milk the rubes with some more NFTs.

Let's see here. Adding this campaign finance violation to the rest of the charges.

I guess the lawyers will vote for him. He will keep them busy for quite a while to come.

This is the cue for all those people griping about "Bidenomics" to get out those checkbooks and start writing checks to tiny d. Because he cares about them, and is going to "fight for" them.

Pizza party this Friday is cancelled :(

Trump doesn't do pizza parties.

He does McDonalds parties, much cheaper.