Trump’s Legal Fund Is Running Out Of Cash — Here’s How Big Donors Could Still Pay His Bills

Former President Donald Trump’s legal issues aren’t slowing down—and neither are his bills. Save America PAC, the main fund Trump has used to pay his lawyers, spent more on legal fees in February than in any month prior, forking out more than $5 million to pay the ex-president’s attorneys. The PAC has spent $51.5 million on legal fees since the start of 2023, making up most of the $76.5 million the PAC has spent over that span. But Save America’s cash flow has been reliant on a $60 million refund from another Trump PAC—and it’s set to run out in the coming months.

Formed in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, Save America was initially buoyed by a surge of funding as Trump solicited donations for what he termed an “election defense fund” as he challenged the vote count. The leadership PAC raised $31.5 million by the end of 2020, and had amassed $105.4 million in cash on hand by the end of 2021, before Trump’s legal issues really heated up.

In October and November 2022, the PAC—still flush with approximately $92.2 million in cash—transferred $60 million of its funds to a separate super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc., which The New York Times NYT reports was done to help fund Trump’s campaign.

Then, in July 2023, reports emerged that Save America, facing a dwindling cash supply as Trump’s legal fees mounted, wanted the $60 million back. While the Make America Great Again super PAC can accept donations from Trump’s campaign, it faces tighter restrictions than Save America (a leadership PAC, typically formed by a candidate to help fund other candidates) when it comes to paying legal bills, because it cannot directly donate to candidates or coordinate with them. So, Make America Great Again has been repaying Save America rather than donating to it directly, giving Trump’s legal fund a boost without directly funding the campaign. The sum has been paid back in installments since May 2023, largely in increments of $5,000,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Approximately $47.3 million has now been reimbursed.

Those refunds have been Save America’s main financial lifeline as Trump’s legal expenses have ballooned. Of the $62.3 million that Save America raised between Jan. 2023 and the end of February 2024, the most recent date for which information is available, $52.3 million of that has been from refunds from affiliated committees. That includes the $47.3 million that Make America Great Again Inc has refunded, plus an additional $5,000,000 refund from the separate Make America Great Again PAC. By contrast, only $104,193 has come from individual contributions made to the PAC directly since January 2023, and approximately $9.9 million has come in through donations made via the Trump campaign’s website during that time. Those website donations went into a joint fundraising committee, where 90 cents of each dollar went to Trump’s campaign and the other 10 cents went to Save America.

Save America already spent more money in February than it took in. And with the super PAC refunds set to run out by May if they continue at their current rate, and Trump’s legal woes showing no signs of slowing, Trump could soon have to find another way to pay his legal bills. He has reportedly been turning to billionaire and other wealthy donors to help bridge a fundraising gap between him and President Joe Biden, and Save America is one of several funds that will get a boost from a big fundraiser Saturday for the Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising committee set up to benefit both the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee. Notably, money will be allocated to Save America even before the RNC, according to copies of the invitation viewed by multiple outlets, with donations going first to Trump’s campaign and then to Save America—maxing out the individual contribution limits for each—before the rest goes to the RNC and state parties.

The fundraiser, the first for the Trump campaign and RNC’s new joint fundraising operation, has already raised $43 million, organizers confirmed to Forbes. The 100-person event has a slew of major donors behind it, with billionaire John Paulson chairing the event and co-chairs that reportedly include billionaires Harold Hamm and Steve Wynn.

Donors can only contribute a maximum of $5,000 each to Save America, under federal campaign finance rules—meaning that while the fundraiser might net Trump and the GOP millions overall, only a small fraction of that can go to the primary vehicle for paying Trump’s legal bills.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely Save America can make up the loss of its seven-figure refund checks “without really robust small dollar fundraising,” Daniel Weiner, former FEC counsel and the head of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government program, tells Forbes. Yet it would take 1,000 donors contributing the maximum amount to Save America to make up one monthly refund payment from the super PAC—and that still wouldn’t be enough to cover Trump’s legal bills just for February.

Save America also has few options to bring in large donations instead: Trump’s super PAC can’t send money to it directly, and it can’t get an infusion of cash from his main campaign account, as candidates can’t use campaign funds on personal expenses such as legal bills. A separate leadership PAC that’s also been used to pay Trump’s legal fees had less than $600,000 in cash on hand at the end of 2023.

There are signs Trump may be abandoning Save America. His campaign, which had been soliciting small-dollar donations to the entity by siphoning off 10% of online donations, now links to a different joint fundraising committee on its website, one that only allocates money to the Trump campaign and RNC. (The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment on its fundraising and if it’s still actively raising small donations for Save America.)

How Else Can Trump Fund His Bills?

Save America’s dwindling cash reserves and lack of options to replenish them mean Trump will likely have to find another way to get big donors to fund his attorneys fees, campaign finance experts told Forbes.

Weiner suggested Trump may be best off trying to pay legal fees through the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC, even though such PACs—which can accept unlimited donations—aren’t supposed to be coordinating with candidates and paying their expenses. “I don’t think this is legal,” Weiner says, but Trump’s lawyers could “claim that it falls within a gap in the law” and try to get away with it. The ex-president could claim that such payments wouldn’t be “coordinating election activity,” as the law prohibits, but rather are “providing [a] massive personal benefit to the candidate,” according to Weiner. “And they might say, yeah, super PACs are supposed to be independent, but the law doesn't cover this particular situation, so we can do it.”

Another tactic could be deputizing the RNC to help pay legal bills, though Trump’s new handpicked leaders of the national party have given mixed answers on whether they think the RNC should do so. Campaign finance attorney Brett Kappel tells Forbes that wealthy donors can give much higher amounts to national and state parties, and thanks to a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that abolished certain donation limits, state parties can receive donations and then funnel them back to the main national party. That means donors could donate to state parties once they hit the contribution limit for the RNC, and then have their funds still donated back to the national party. Such donations could be a way for wealthy donors to direct money to Trump’s legal efforts, as the RNC has a specific fund for legal proceedings that could be used to cover Trump’s bills.

Trump can’t pay any legal fees directly through his campaign if they are clearly personal in nature, like the civil fraud case against him and his company. But his campaign could likely get away with taking on the fees for cases that relate to his candidacy or his time in the White House in some way, Weiner notes, such as the multiple criminal cases against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And while Trump has opted to use small-donor funds for his legal bills, Kappel points out there’s nothing stopping wealthy friends from just cutting him a check directly, which wouldn’t have to be reported to the FEC at all.

Whatever fundraising route Trump takes, it’s unlikely to land him in any hot water legally. The FEC rarely goes after campaign finance violations that are in legal gray areas and “has been terrible about enforcing coordination restrictions,” Weiner says. While the Justice Department can prosecute campaign finance violations, Weiner notes it rarely does so in cases where the issue isn’t cut and dry. Ultimately, adds Kappel, “the likelihood of anything happening to him for this is zero or near zero.”