Trump, RNC deal prioritizes paying legal fees before donations

Former President Donald Trump’s new shared fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee directs a portion of donations to the political account he has used to pay his legal bills before any money goes to the party itself.

The order in which entities will receive funds from big donors through what is known as the Trump 47 Committee was disclosed in the fine print of an invitation to a big dinner next month in Palm Beach, Florida, where top donors are asked to contribute up to $814,600 per person to attend.

The invitation shows that the first $6,600 donated will go to Trump’s campaign. The next $5,000 will go to his Save America political action committee, which paid more than $50 million in legal and investigation-related bills for Trump in 2023. The $5,000 amount is the maximum that federal rules say can be contributed to Save America by an individual.

After that, the RNC gets the next $413,000, followed by dozens of state parties.

In practice, what that means is that even modestly large contributors — anything above $6,600 — will fund the account that Trump has used to defray legal costs. And the fundraising agreement came as Save America, which has averaged roughly $5 million a month in legal payments for Trump and witnesses in his cases, is on course to run low on funds as the spring ends.

The prioritization of Trump’s Save America PAC before the Republican National Committee was first reported by The Associated Press.

The new fundraising agreement comes shortly after Trump has functionally taken over the RNC as the presumptive Republican nominee. He pushed to install a new chair, Michael Whatley, and to have his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair.

One of Trump’s two co-campaign managers, Chris LaCivita, has pushed through mass layoffs amid a top-to-bottom restructuring.

Trump begins the general election ahead of President Joe Biden in the polls but behind him in campaign cash. Biden and his joint operations with the party reported $155 million in cash on hand as of the end of February. The Trump campaign said it had $42 million across its accounts while the RNC reported another $11.3 million.

The invitation to the April 6 dinner, which The New York Times previously reported was expected to raise $25 million, listed a number of familiar names as co-chairs. Those people included Robert Bigelow, a former top supporter of Ron DeSantis.

The nature of such a dinner for megadonors is that most funds will still go to the party.

But for a smaller event with, for instance, a $25,000 price to attend, a far larger share under the agreement would go to Trump’s PAC.

Trump officials have angrily pushed back on suggestions that the RNC will be defraying any of Trump’s personal legal fees.