But with Tuesday’s formal declaration, Trump must comply with limits on the size and sources of his contributions. A federal candidate cannot accept money directly from a corporation or a labor union, for instance.
And, currently, an individual can only contribute $2,900 to a federal candidate for the primary or general election. (That contribution limit, indexed to inflation, will rise for the 2023-2024 election cycle. Federal regulators will announce the new contribution limits early next year.)
And, as a candidate, any money Trump spends to advance his White House ambitions – whether it’s for travel to an early primary state or ads touting his achievements – becomes official campaign expenditures and needs to come out of his campaign account.
“He can’t use any of his PACs to fly around the country and give speeches,” said Richard Briffault, an expert on campaign finance regulation and a professor at Columbia Law School. …
Trump can’t simply dump all the money raised by his leadership PAC or an affiliated super PAC into his campaign account. That’s because his campaign committee is subject to strict fundraising limits that don’t apply to those PACs.
But there are other ways the money Trump has amassed can still advance his candidacy.
[There are ways around some of the restrictions, but the bigger issue will be disconnecting from the RNC. Not only have they paid his legal bills the last two years, their organization had merged with the Trump campaign. That has to end, which means that Team Trump has to build out its own primary ground organization again on its own. — Ed]
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