Republican candidacy ‘profitable’

New email woes surface for Clinton

DONALD Trump prides himself on running a minimalist, even austere, presidential campaign.

The advisers, pollsters, image experts and fashion gurus that so bloat and expand the payrolls of most traditional operations are not for him.

But there is one area where he appears to be more willing to shell out and that’s the amount he pays himself to rent office space in Trump Tower.

Reports by the Federal Election Commission show that the Republican presidential nominee campaign paid $35 457 (R500 766) a month for rent and utilities to Trump Tower Commercial LLC between August 2015 and April this year.

However, the payments began increasing in May and hit $169 758 last month.

The rent for the New York property jumped even though he was paying fewer staff in July than he was in March.

Trump became the de facto Republican candidate in May after he won the Indiana primary, and senator at the party’s convention last month, and said he would begin accepting donations to his campaign.

Previously, he had boasted that he was paying for everything out of his own finances.

In a statement to The Huffington Post, it said that it had expanded into larger quarters.

“Mr Trump makes a personal contribution of $2 million a month to the campaign, a much higher amount than rent,” the statement said.

It did not, however, address the question of why the campaign needed more space when it had a lower number of staff.

In 2000, when Trump was considering running as an independent candidate, he said: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”

Trump has long been accused of paying himself and his family during the campaign.

In June, The New York Times revealed that the Trump campaign, which had $1.3m to hand in June, paid $1.1m to his businesses and family in May for expenses associated with events and travel costs.

The total represented nearly a fifth of the $6m his campaign spent in the month.

“He could end up turning a profit if he repaid himself for the campaign loans,” said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance expert.

“He could get all his money back plus the profit margin for what his campaign has paid him for goods and services.”

Trump continues to fly to campaign events in his jet, which burns $10 000 in fuel every hour, The Huffington Post reported.

In July, $495 000 was paid to his company that owns the plane. Yet not everything about the campaign has been a boost.

Earlier this month it was reported that Trump-branded businesses had seen a dip of at least 10 percent in visitors. – The Independent NEW YORK: For weeks, she sat back and watched as controversy after controversy washed over Donald Trump, but suddenly Hillary Clinton herself is facing a fresh wave of potential scandals. Worse, they threaten to climax just as the US votes.

One is the well-trodden matter of her use of a private email server while secretary of state; the other relates to the Clinton Foundation and whether donors received preferential access to her.

The two bombs dropped on the Clinton campaign at once on Monday.

First, it emerged that the FBI has collected and delivered to the State Department almost 15 000 new emails not previously seen, and a federal judge ordered the department to accelerate their release to the public.

Meanwhile, a conservative group called Judicial Watch released details of more emails explaining how donors to the foundation set about trying to get Clinton’s attention.

Clinton will continue to rely on Trump to step on his own campaign, but she also knows that between now and election day she will be forced into some damage control of her own.

Trump is taking full advantage, and on Monday demanded a special prosecutor be appointed to look into her email affairs and the relationship between the State Department under her watch and the Clinton Foundation. – The Independent