Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2024
Abstract
Campaign finance data released at the end of January 2024 revealed that Save America, a political action committee founded and controlled by former President Donald Trump, spent more than US$50 million in 2023 on legal fees resulting from Trump’s multiple criminal and civil cases.
OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit tracking campaign funds, found that other Trump-aligned organizations also paid a combined $10 million in additional legal fees for Trump in 2023.
Though I have spent much of my career as a scholar of campaign finance law, I’m not certain whether that use of campaign donations is legal under federal election law. It might be; it might not be. But if it’s not, I deem it unlikely that the Federal Election Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws, would take any action.
Disciplines
Election Law | Law | Law and Politics
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Richard Briffault,
Yes, Trump’s PACs Really Can Pay His Legal Fees,
The Conversation, February 29, 2024
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4698