President Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive Friday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)
WASHINGTON — President Trump already has
stockpiled nearly $12 million for his 2020 re-election campaign, but
his spending on legal expenses is soaring as his administration deals
with a rapidly expanding investigation into possible collusion between
his campaign and the Russian government, documents released Saturday
afternoon show.
Trump's campaign
racked up more than $677,000 in "legal consulting" fees between April
and June, more than twice the $249,000 he spent on legal bills during
the first three months of his presidency, newly filed Federal Election
Commission reports show.
Most of the legal expenses were tied to his longtime election law firm, Jones Day.
But
the filings also show a nearly $90,000 payment for legal expenses to
his company, the Trump Organization, and $50,000 payment on June 27 to
the law firm of Alan Futerfas, the New York-based criminal attorney now
representing Donald Trump Jr.
The younger Trump is
facing increased scrutiny over revelations that he met a Russian lawyer
in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, believing that the
Russian government had dirt to offer on Democratic presidential
contender Hillary Clinton.
The payment to Futerfas came before The New York Times
broke news of Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer and nearly
two weeks before it was publicly announced that Futerfas would represent
the president's oldest son.
Michael
Glassner, the executive director of Trump's campaign, did not respond
to requests for more information about the payment to Futerfas and
whether it amounted to a plan to use campaign dollars for all of the
younger Trump's future legal bills.
White House officials and Futerfas also did not immediately respond to inquiries about the payment and its timing.
Using
donors' money to pay his son's legal bills "should be permissible,"
Washington election lawyer Ken Gross told USA TODAY, because the younger
Trump's actions "were purportedly on behalf of the campaign."
New
details have emerged in recent days about the meeting involving the
president's son. On Friday, news broke that a Russian-American lobbyist
who once served in the Soviet military also was part of the June 2016
meeting at Trump Tower.
On Saturday, the president
formally announced the addition of a veteran Washington lawyer Ty Cobb
to his legal team at the White House. Cobb, a partner in the
investigations practice at the Hogan Lovells firm is expected to oversee
the White House's legal and media response to the Russia probes.
Bob
Biersack, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
Politics, said a key question is whether Trump's campaign will
underwrite the legal expenses related to the Russia investigation for
other campaign staffers beyond his relative.
Big cash reserves
In
all, Trump’s campaign spent more than $4.3 million during the
April-to-June fundraising quarter. Nearly half the money went to
“digital consulting” and “online advertising” conducted by
Giles-Parscale, a Texas firm that oversaw Trump’s 2016 digital efforts.
(Brad
Parscale, a firm owner and the campaign’s digital guru, announced
Friday that he had accepted an invitation to testify before the House
intelligence committee as it examines Russia’s election meddling. In a
statement, Parscale said he was "unaware of any Russian involvement in
the digital and data operations" of the Trump campaign.)
The
campaign also spent more than $200,000 at Trump-owned properties during
the three-month period covered by Saturday’s filings, including lodging
expenses at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and rent to
Trump Towers in New York, where his campaign is headquartered
Those
earning salaries from the campaign include John Pence, the nephew of
Vice President Pence, hired in January as the campaign’s deputy
executive director. He’s earned $82,000 in the first six months of this
year.
Still, the Trump political operation has big cash reserves.
In
addition to the nearly $12 million Trump’s reelection campaign had
stockpiled in the bank at the end of June, two other joint fundraising
committees he shares with the Republican National Committee had a
combined $10.6 million in leftover funds in their campaign accounts,
Federal Election Commission filings show.
Those committees,
Trump Victory and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, allow
the Trump campaign operation to solicit six-figure checks. And the new
filings show big donors gravitating to the president, who relied large
on small-dollar contributors to fuel his 2016 campaign.
Among the biggest donors: Lianbo Wang and Sherry Li, who gave a combined $600,000.
In
recent years, Li has pushed a development project near the Catskills
Mountains in New York initially described in media accounts as a Chinese
Disneyland.
The project now is touted as a
higher-education center, The Thompson Education Center, to be funded by
wealthy Chinese individuals, who could ultimately earn permanent
residency in the United States through their investments.
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder donated $100,000.
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