President Donald Trump raised over $170 million after the election as he waged a baseless campaign to gin up fraud conspiracy theories about his election loss but little of that money actually went to his legal efforts, The New York Times reports.
Trump raised more than $175 million in November and December, according to his latest Federal Election Commission filing, but spent more on ads pushing his lies about the election rather than his failed legal effort that was roundly rejected by the courts.
In all, Trump spent just $10 million on legal costs while spending five times as much on fundraising and advertising.
Trump’s largest payment during that time was a nearly $5 million ad buy for TV commercials. His second-largest payment was $4.4 million for online ads.
The Republican National Committee received about a quarter of the funds, but “spent relatively little on legal costs” as well.
Trump, RNC sitting on boatload of cash:
Trump and the RNC have about $63 million remaining from the late-2020 haul. Trump separately has another $31 million in his new political action committee and the RNC separately has around $80 million in the bank.
Most of the money came from smaller donations, though there were some five- and six-figure checks.
Naturally, the president has paid some of the money to himself. The Trump Victory Committee paid $34,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection late last year and another $39,200 to DT Endeveaor, a Trump-owned company that operates a private plane.
Another Trump committee paid $75,000 in rent to Trump Tower in December.
Little went to fighting election results:
About $1.6 million of the money went to Kasowitz Benson Torres, a law firm, and another two law firms received about $1.1 million. In comparison, Trump spent even more, $3 million, for a partial recount of the Wisconsin election results.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was reimbursed $63,000 for travel in December. He did not report any payments from Trump.
