Donald J. Trump will leave the White House as a private person next month, on top of a pile of campaign money that an outgoing president does not know and with few legal limits on how he can spend it.
Dropped by a loss that he has yet to admit, Trump took the blow by pulling huge sums of money from his loyal supporters – often under dubious pretenses – with which he, along with the national party, raised about $ 250 million since election day.
According to people familiar with the case, more than $ 60 million of that amount has gone to a new political action committee, which will monitor Trump after he leaves office. Those funds, far greater than what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, gave him tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: he could use the money to suppress rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, travel and finance meetings, pay staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far from certain term in 2024.
The post-election rush of fundraising has cemented Trump’s position as an unparalleled force and the Republican Party’s preeminent fundraiser, even in defeat. His biggest online donation day actually came after Election Day, raising nearly $ 750,000 an hour on Nov. 6. So did his second-greatest day. And his third.
“Right now, he’s the Republican Party,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who worked on Trump’s reelection campaign. “The party knows that almost every dollar they have raised in the past four years has come from Donald Trump.”
During the campaign, many of the major expenses, such as buying television and digital advertising, were channeled through a secretive LLC called American Made Media Consultants. As a result, the Trump campaign and his joint committee with the national party were effectively able to protect many details of his spending, including who was paid and how much. As of early 2019, more than $ 700 million has gone through the LLC.
What no one knew was that the LLC represented another blend of Trump’s political, financial, and family interests. New documents reviewed by The New York Times reveal that Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and a senior campaign advisor, was a member of the board – and was mentioned in drafts of the founding papers. So did John Pence, Vice President Mike Pence’s cousin and a senior Trump adviser.
Tim Murtaugh, a Trump spokesman, said both Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the board in October 2019. “There was never an ethical or legal reason why they couldn’t sit on the board at all,” he said. He added that neither was paid to join the board.
American Made Media Consultants was the subject of a complaint to the Federal Election Commission this year accusing it of “laundering” funds to cover up the ultimate beneficiary of Trump campaign spending. Filings show that the vast majority of the money was spent after Lara Trump resigned from the board. The complaint is being processed.
For Trump, the quarter of a billion dollars he and the party raised over six weeks is enough to pay off all of his remaining campaign bills and fund his fruitless legal challenges and still have tens of millions of dollars left.
However, Trump’s plans remain extraordinarily flexible. His refusal to accept Joe Biden’s victory has hampered internal political planning, aides say, with some advisers in his shrinking circle of confidants reluctant to even approach him about planning a move for 2021 and beyond.
Those who have spoken to Trump say he seems shrunken, and about his job; this aloofness is reflected in a Twitter feed that remains stubbornly focused more on baseless fraud allegations than on the death toll from the raging pandemic.
Trump has talked about running in 2024, but maybe not. He created this new PAC, but there could still be another political entity in the works, people involved in the discussions said. Speaking of a counter-programming to Biden’s inauguration with a smashing event or an announcement of your own is currently on hold.
Trump tentatively planned to go to Georgia on Saturday, according to a senior Republican official, to support the two Republicans in the Senate run-off races there. But he’s still mad at the Republican governor and state secretary of state for accepting the election results and just doesn’t want to make the trip. There is some debate that he is going after the Christmas holidays.
Still, Trump’s political apparatus has taken advantage of the grassroots energy and excitement over the two run-offs to leverage its own fundraising efforts. Email and text requests have thrown Trump supporters to donate to a “Georgia Election Fund,” though no money goes directly to any of the Republican senators on the vote, irritating some Senate GOP strategists.
Instead, the fine print shows that 75% of donations to the Georgia fund go to Trump’s new PAC, called Save America, and 25% to the Republican National Committee.
After weeks of yelling ‘FRAUD’ in emails to supporters and asking them to back an ‘election defense fund’ (which also sent 75% of donations to its new PAC), the Trump operation has subtly taken its tone and focus and has returned to more sustainable pre-selection themes, such as hawking autographed hats and opposing socialism.
According to federal data, Trump and the RNC spent about $ 15 million on legal fees and other expenses related to contesting the election between October 15 and November 23.
Even some of his largest post-election spending, which his campaign called recount-related, went through the LLC of which Lara Trump served on the board, including $ 2.2 million for “ SMS ads, ” known as text messaging.
For an idea of the magnitude of how much money Donald Trump will have at his disposal, the new Trump PAC-plus of $ 60 million is – and counts – about as much money as he spent to win his party’s 2016 presidential nomination. .
Some campaign finance experts have speculated that Trump could try to use the excess cash in his new PAC, formally known as a lead PAC, to pay for his own personal future legal troubles when investigated once he takes office. leaves. (A senior Trump adviser said they don’t expect the money to be used for personal legal needs.)
“An executive PAC is a slush fund,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a group that supports greater political transparency. “There are very, very few limits that he cannot spend money on.”
Over the past five years, Trump has never shied away from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his contributors on his private companies, a practice he could continue or expand while away from the office.
Just since mid-October, the Trump Victory Committee, a joint account managed with the RNC, has paid more than $ 710,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection, while his reelection account has paid more than $ 37,000 a month to rent space in Trump Tower.
It is not clear where his post-presidential operation will take place or who will direct it, although several advisers expect it to be in Florida, where he plans to move.
But as a former president, after leaving the White House, Trump is allocated a certain amount of taxpayers’ money for staff and office space for life, and he begins to discuss which West Wing assistants will accompany him.
His senior political advisers – Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, and Jason Miller, among others – are among those who may remain involved with him politically.
While Trump’s post-presidency remains largely formless, he has expressed his desire to exercise his control over national politics, especially among Republicans.
He has already supported Ronna McDaniel, a close ally, to serve one more term as chairman of the RNC. He has primarily challenged Republicans, such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who crossed him by rejecting his baseless theories of electoral fraud. He has even asked assistants how to maintain control of the party when he is not a candidate.
One person close to Trump said he sounded less confident about his statement that he will be active in 2024 than he had two weeks ago. That uncertainty is causing concern among some of the president’s advisers and aides, some of whom may join other campaigns, but remain in limbo until Trump makes a decision. Announcement to the president would lead to tighter rules on Trump’s political spending and more financial disclosures, including about Trump’s personal finances, that simply don’t have a PAC.
Trump’s future ambitions have also created a cloud over who exactly will control some of the 2020 campaign’s most valuable assets, including Trump’s long list of supporters from whom he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Both the RNC and Trump are entitled to some of this valuable voter data, and attempts to “disconnect” the data are underway but are expected to take months.
“There is no pulpit as big as the presidency, but nonetheless, President Trump is likely to play an important role in the future of the Republican Party,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “It is very difficult to imagine that he follows the same pattern that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and other presidents have followed by keeping their mouths shut and letting the new president try to rule.”