Report: $50M in Trump Donor Money Went to Legal Fees

Political action committees aligned with Donald Trump spent a huge amount of donor money on legal fees last year as indictments and lawsuits piled up, according to the New York Times, which cites "two people briefed on the figure." The Times' sources say the PACs spent around $50 million on legal fees, which is around as much as Nikki Haley raised through all her PACs. A more precise figure will be included in Federal Election Commission filings Wednesday.

Trump has been paying the legal fees through his Save America PAC—and directing 10% of campaign donations raised online to it. Legal and investigation-related fees have also been paid by the Make America Great Again PAC. Last year, as Save America started running out of cash, the former president asked another pro-Trump group, the MAGA Inc. super PAC, to refund money that had been transferred to it, which ended up "redirecting $42.5 million from a super PAC devoted to electing him as president to a committee now chiefly devoted to paying his lawyers," as the Times puts it.

Haley went on the attack after the Times report was published Tuesday, Politico reports. "Another reason Donald Trump won't debate me… His PAC spent 50 MILLION in campaign dollars on his legal fees," she said in a post on X. "He can't beat Joe Biden if he's spending all his time and money on court cases and chaos." (More Donald Trump stories.)