Some Big Names in Republican Fundraising Are Financing Trump's Legal Defense Fund
Source: The Daily Beast
Some of the richest individuals in the energy, real estate and casino industries are financing a controversial legal defense fund to help the president foot legal bills associated with the federal investigation into Russian election meddling.
The fund, known as the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust, was launched in late February 2018. Through June, the groups top donor was Geoff Palmer, a Los Angeles real estate developer and one of the Trump 2016 campaigns biggest financial supporters, according to financial records obtained by The Daily Beast. Palmer is followed by Phil Ruffin, a casino magnate and Trump backer, and Continental Resources, the oil and gas company founded and chaired by Harold Hamm, a high-dollar Trump donor and board member of pro-Trump dark money group America First Policies.
The group also reported income from ProActive Communications, which is run by the legal expense funds spokesman, Mark Serrano. ProActive has also done extensive business for the Trump re-election campaign since last year and Serrano has been a public defender of the president on cable. The legal expense fund has not reported any expenditures to ProActive.
Trump set up the fund to pay legal expenses incurred by White House officials and allies caught up in special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trumpworld figures whove been questioned or prosecuted as part of that investigation have huge legal bills, sometimes stretching into the seven figures.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/some-big-names-in-republican-fundraising-are-financing-trumps-legal-defense-fund
Ohiogal
(32,045 posts)I thought he was supposed to be a billionaire.
jmowreader
(50,562 posts)...is "never spend your own money."
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)He's a republican grifter.
* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)Jeez, George Orwell could not have named it better
what's in an acronym?
onetexan
(13,056 posts)monetarily funding the idiot's legal defense.
paleotn
(17,946 posts)Kaleva
(36,328 posts)" Los Angeles real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer, Las Vegas casino operator Phillip Ruffin and Continental Resources, a gas company headed by Harold Hamm all friends of President Donald Trump donated most of the $200,000 raised by a legal defense fund set up to help people caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. But the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust did not spend any of that money on legal fees, according to tax filings. Instead, the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust from the beginning of 2018 through the end of June spent more than $42,000 on "insurance" from a Alabama-based risk-management company, and another $6,500 on accounting services from an accounting firm."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/06/trump-legal-defense-fund-raised-200000-but-spent-zero-on-legal-work.html
If some legal bills are running into the 7 figures and the fund has only raised $200,000, this seems to be not much of anything.