YOICKS

This is what incompetence looks like…he hasn't even run a campaign yet!

Donald Trump's $100 million PAC is down to just $3.6 million in cash https://t.co/vLfZSewyRP

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) August 1, 2023

This was probably not good news when they got done pencil whipping the figures for the report. I have to admit, it has been kind of a crappy couple of months for expenditures.

Former President Donald Trump’s once-formidable and lucrative political action committee is down to $3 million on hand while committees allied with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Joe Biden have well over $100 million combined ready to deploy, new data shows.

Trump’s Save America PAC raised over $15 million in the first half of 2023, spent over $30 million and now has about $3.6 million on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records. The committee came into 2023 in a strong position, raising over $100 million and with $18 million on hand.

An NBC News analysis of the filings shows that Save America spent north of $20 million on legal fees, with payments going to more than 40 different law firms.

The drop in fundraising by the Trump PAC suggests the small-dollar donor operation that has helped the former president and his allies run a political fundraising juggernaut could be dwindling.

Between his different fundraising organs, the former president still has cash on hand, but at the rate they’re burning it – without Jack Smith’s additional or Atlanta’s legal hijinks being included – it won’t last long.

By the far the biggest obvious drain of the already massive toll is that which the legal bills have taken on his reserves.

…To illustrate how Trump’s criminal defense is swallowing his campaign, just over half of the money he raised last quarter went not to the campaign itself but to an affiliated PAC that is footing the legal bills. Of more than $35 million raised between March and June, the campaign received $17.7 million, according to the latest report to the Federal Election Commission. The rest went to the Save America PAC, which will report its latest finances on July 31 but has been spending millions on lawyers representing Trump and allies in the multiple ongoing cases, according to FEC disclosures.

“A lot of money is going to legal and people who don’t do much, and not a lot is left over to do marketing and advertising,” said one Trump adviser, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans. “A lot of the money we’re raising is just going to legal.”

Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the political and legal efforts are blending together because Trump and his supporters view the prosecutions as President Biden’s effort to stop him. “They see another political indictment or target letter and they know this is just the weaponized Biden Justice Department going after President Trump,” he said. “It solidifies in their mind what the President has been saying for all these months. So much of the legal messaging is political messaging and so much of political messaging is legal messaging.”

That’s not to say the totals won’t be even harder hit, as quite a few people are looking askance at his financing his defense with campaign donations. As much as Trump campaign advisors insist donors know they’re paying for his legal bills with their campaign donations, the question arises, well…do they really? Or did they think their bucks were paying for DeSantis attack ads, etc., while the billionaire was footing his own lawyer bills? There might well be some people writing checks who had no idea the majority of donations were going into a defense kitty. If they realized what the bulk of donations were for, would they be upset? Would they keep donating? Will others step up to donate or stop?

Legit questions. I would bet a good number of those folks donating wouldn’t mind at all, as they’re donating to the cause as much as the candidate.

But the danger is still clear – presidential campaigns are ruinously expensive without fighting for your life on multiple legal fronts, whatever the merits – or lack thereof – of the charges. Every last one of them in every single venue still has to be contested with everything he can bring to the table.

The legal bill math is gruesome for the four separate trials he’s facing right now, all while he needs to be on the road. It’s overwhelming in scale. And, I’m sure, that’s by Biden surrogate design.

…The campaign is now planning for Trump to run for president while facing four separate trials spanning a range of criminal charges: Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment accusing Trump of paying hush money to an adult film actress before the 2016 election; special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment in Florida in June accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents; a potential indictment from Smith’s investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021; and a potential one from an Atlanta-area district attorney’s probe into efforts to overturn Trump’s electoral defeat in Georgia.

The swapping of monies between PACs could bring their own scrutiny and their own legal jeopardy as well. Eyeballs are already noting the yuge amounts passing back and forth. As Trump is a target for any enterprising justice type – like a red flag to a bull – they’ll be crawling through paperwork in a heartbeat,

…The dwindling cash reserves in Mr. Trump’s PAC, called Save America, have fallen to such levels that the group has made the highly unusual request of a $60 million refund of a donation it had previously sent to a pro-Trump super PAC. This money had been intended for television commercials to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy, but as he is the dominant front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, his most immediate problems appear to be legal, not political.

The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement.

The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.

It comes as Mr. Trump’s political and legal fate appear increasingly intertwined. The return of money from the super PAC, which Mr. Trump does not control, to his political action committee, which he does, demonstrates how his operation is balancing dueling priorities: paying lawyers and supporting his political candidacy through television ads.

Save America, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, is prohibited by law from directly spending money on his candidacy. When Save America donated $60 million last year to Mr. Trump’s super PAC — which is permitted to spend on his campaign — it effectively evaded that prohibition.

I hope to GOD his people know what the hell they’re doing. Obscure campaign finance violations catch the most meticulous of campaigns. Lord knows, nothing on this complicated a scale.

When you know they’re looking for any excuse, holy smokes. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter you polished yourself.

UPDATE: AY dios mio – that bill just went through the roof.

The newest indictment against Trump has dropped. It is 4 counts over 45 pages:

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Conspiracy to Obstruct Official Proceeding
Obstruction of an Attempt to Obststruct an official proceeding
Conspiracy Against Rights

Donald Trump is the only… pic.twitter.com/O9vndJVtcp

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 1, 2023