Trump to pay some legal bills for aides

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump intends to spend at least $430,000 of his own money to help pay the legal bills of White House staff members and campaign aides related to the investigations into Russian election meddling in the 2016 election, a White House official said Saturday.

It’s the first such commitment by Trump, who has dismissed the ongoing investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Russia as a “witch hunt” invented by Democrats to explain Hillary Clinton’s loss.

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how the payouts would be structured or which aides would be receiving them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the president’s plans, which were first reported by the website Axios.

Trump and his aides have been racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees as special counsel Robert Mueller and House and Senate committees dig deeper into Russia’s role in the campaign. Mueller’s team of investigators has been interviewing current and former White House officials in their probe.

One former campaign aide, Michael Caputo, has spoken publicly about the financial toll the legal bills have taken on his family, including having to empty out his children’s college savings accounts.

The Republican National Committee and the president’s re-election campaign have been covering some of the costs.

Norman Eisen, an ethics lawyer in the Obama administration, said Trump’s offer “raises substantial questions under federal criminal law and federal ethics law,” including whether it might be construed as part of an effort to glean more favorable testimony and whether current federal employees are even allowed to accept such gifts.

“Whenever an individual who is the focus of an investigation, as President Trump is the focus of this investigation, offers anything of value to witnesses who may be able to affect the course of the investigation, that raises very serious questions on a variety of legal authorities,” he said.