1y ago

Explainer: Can Trump use political donations to pay for legal defense?

www.reuters.com Explainer: Can Trump use political donations to pay for legal defense?

Donald Trump's main fundraising group, known as a leadership PAC, reported spending more than $21 million on legal fees in the first half of 2023.

The answer is tricky, according to legal experts. Generally, politicians cannot spend campaign money on legal expenses unless they are tied to a campaign, but many of the investigations involving Trump relate to his conduct as president and as a political candidate.
However, leadership PACs such as Save America also are not allowed to directly support their own candidate's campaign. Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on campaign finance issues who has supported Democratic candidates, said that because Trump is fighting criminal charges during a presidential campaign, it is possible that covering legal fees could be considered a benefit to his campaign.

9 comments

Can? No. Will? Yes.
- never fear, the FEC will spring into action--with a 3-3 party split (by design), and 4 trump appointees among the six currently serving.

Mr. Trump and his movement attempted a self-coup on January 6 2021; by making war against Congress, with the purpose of stopping the certification of the election results.
Incompetent war; shitty war — but war nonetheless: a violent attack against a branch of the federal government. Having declared that Congress and even his own Vice President were his enemies, Mr. Trump thus became an enemy of the United States.
As such, all material support for Mr. Trump and his movement constitutes treason, under the definition provided in the Constitution:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

The real question is, why is a supposed billionaire begging for donations?
The man lies about everything, everywhere, all at once.
Now I'm off to the supermarket to get celebratory ice cream for the latest round of indictments that dropped today.

I wonder how many of the lawyers saying “yeah it’s fine” are owed money by him?

I’m sure the Supreme Court will say it’s fine.. just fucking fine. These assholes have abandoned democracy.

He's never going to use any of that money to help other GOP candidates, so it should be considered a loss by them. The upside is that he'll just beg his cultists to donate more to his campaign and his defense fund, and that will rob GOP candidates of funds they need.

Punished for it? No

9 comments