Trump Legal Fund Going Broke?

Things have stacked up in a major way for Trump. Even a seriously great circus juggle would have trouble keeping all the balls Trump’s juggling in the air and Trump is no juggler. It’s not hard to juggle a few small items. I still can handle three just fine, having first learned juggling using basketballs (awkward due to their size) back in high school to develop hand eye coordination and “feel for the ball.” Smaller balls were as I said easy, but anything more than four and I had trouble. Again, I don’t think Trump could juggle three little golf balls.

With trying to keep the Trump Org one step ahead of who knows how many creditors (something he’s done for decades, albeit via dubious means now being exposed), covering civil judgements and dealing with criminal prosecutions in four different jurisdictions he can’t keep all the balls in the air. AND he’s got a Presidential campaign to conduct. Winning back the Presidency is his only chance of staying out of jail, and complete implosion of the Trump Org as well as personal bankruptcy. Is is any wonder he increasingly appears to look like death warmed over? And is losing so much sleep he’s sleeping in court, audibly snoring and farting?

Trump knows full well that even a single criminal conviction, even the one in Manhattan considered the “least” problematic for him will almost certainly doom his chances of winning come this fall. So he’s shelled out money for a couple of really good lawyers and other legal expenses already up there in New York. It gets worse though because lawyers, especially the kind he’s got have a two-tiered billing system. As they draw pay from their upfront retainers there’s the hourly rate for all the trial prep. But the hourly rate for actual time in court jumps WAY up. Three or four times the prep hourly rate and in some cases even more. With these lawyers in this situation I’m betting “more” is at play here.

That’s why Politico is reporting despite Trump’s takeover of the RNC he might be running out of money to fend off his legal challenges. I’ll be honest and say upfront it’s a dense read. I think it’s worth the time and effort but I’ll try to keep things simple here on PZ. Looking at the linked article and the various PACs/Super-PACs and how money is being shuffled around between them is a shell game. Just like the Trump Org (to be fair tons of businesses play the game of shuffling money/assets between “subsidiaries”) Trump’s political operation shuffles money around. And seems to create new entities as needed.

The problem is that once he formally filed the paperwork to run for President in 2024 the rules changed on what entity could transfer money to what entity, and/or how much. When you add in the public and ham-handed way Trump swallowed the RNC and ITS fundraising apparatus he’s invited a much larger and quite unwelcome level of scrutiny as to the money coming in and where it’s going to. Back when Trump was just another big city real estate magnate playing games and juggling money between subsidiaries to keep things afloat if he dropped some balls in the juggling act it could go largely unnoticed. That’s no longer true.

Now people are watching and watching closely. Sure, Trump can continue to raise money for his legal PAC and no doubt money will come in. However there have been indications for a while now the money hasn’t been rolling in the way it used to. As for that big fundraiser dinner at Mar A Lago that supposedly doubled the haul Biden made up in New York we’ll see in the reporting on this months financials how much was actually raised. It’s one thing for donors to say they’ll kick in x-amount and quite another to come through. All kinds of excuses can be made to hold off to see what happens in the Manhattan trial.

So, as Politico notes Trump’s spending as much on legal expenses in the last month as campaign expenses and that’s not good:

The total spent on legal expenses for Save America was almost as much as Trump’s campaign committee in the month of March, highlighting how legal troubles have sucked up the cash of his political operation. Trump’s official campaign committee spent just over $3.7 million in March, with travel expenses, followed by payroll, occupying its biggest expenditure categories.

The article continues, pointing out that during the same period the Biden campaign spent $29 million. Even more troubling is that Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, was able to stay in the black in March only due to another $5 million refund in March from Make America Great Again Inc., the Trump-backing super PAC. Those transfers date back to last July with less regular ones prior to that. When I spoke about shuffling money between “subsidiaries” this is the kind of thing I mean.  More ominously the Politico article says:

The leadership PAC initially seeded the super PAC with $60 million before he announced his candidacy. Now, MAGA Inc. can only send $2.75 million more back to Save America, raising questions about whether Save America will continue to be the vehicle to fund legal bills in several cases linked to Trump.

Again, Trump can and no doubt will continue to raise money. However, it sure seems to me like his political operation now has the same kind of cash flow problems the Trump Org does. And people, including the FEC and even probably U.S. Attorneys are watching. Closely.

I thought about writing recently about the lack of campaign appearances by Trump prior to his first criminal trial. They are, due to the ego boost he gets from a crowd of screaming MAGAs as much of a boost, a “fix” as a hard core drug addict gets when they shoot up or snort. Not for nothing they also boost small dollar donations as clips make the rounds on social media. There have been precious few in the past couple of months and it’s worth wondering WHY? Could it be he can’t afford to do them anymore?

Lot’s of places even in MAGA territory have learned their lessons about a Trump visit and rally. Whether a municipal or county govt. to private venue owners they now know get your money UP FRONT. Too many places have been left holding the bag for tens of thousands of dollars that Trump stiffed them for when they submitted invoices. His promises to pay them meant about as much as most other promises he’s made. Nothing. Hell, he probably enjoyed playing them for suckers!  Now things are different. It’s not difficult to come up with an accurate estimate of  how much it will cost to host Trump and those who will incur the expense are telling his campaign “No upfront money, No event.” Even insisting on it days in advance. They want that money sitting in their accounts where Trump can’t snatch it back somehow.

Then there’s the cost of travel. Back in the salad days of 2016 with so many hundreds of millions rolling in the travel expenses were no big deal. Then in 2020 he could fly around with a huge press and surrogate entourage on Air Force One at taxpayer expense. It’s one of the huge advantages of incumbency. Find some legitimate reason to visit a place for a political purpose and while you’re there stage a campaign event. That vastly limits the amount an incumbent has to reimburse the governments coffers.

Those days are gone for Trump. HE, or rather his campaign has to pay for the whole show. Only this time he doesn’t have nor can he count on something approaching a billion dollars to fund his campaign. Just maintaining his own place is expensive as he’s once again learned. “Trump Force One” is a Boeing 757. You want to know how much it costs to have and fly around on one if you’re Trump? It’s easy to look up and here’s a short summary from My Aircraft Cost:

Average price for used aircraft BOEING 757-200ER is $20,000,000.00. A $10,000,000.00 loan over 10 years including $41666.67 per month in interest equates to a $501,437.15 per-month payment. Based on 450 hours a year and fuel cost at $4.25 per-gallon, the BOEING 757-200ER has total variable costs of $3,039,952.50, total fixed costs of $849,244.00, and hypothetical summary cost of $3,889,196.50. How much does it cost to fly: $8,642.66 per hour.

Round trip for NYC to Wilmington, NC where he had a Sat. evening rally scheduled would have run well over $40k. Plus fuel costs. Add in the rest of the monthly costs for things like maintenance, airfield/hangar space and so on and maybe Trump cancelled his rally because some campaign bean counter told him he couldn’t afford it. Same for flying around at the pace he’s done in prior campaigns. Add in all the other costs of a campaign and it’s easy to see how Trump’s got money problems.

Which takes me back to the original premise. Trump is trying to juggle way more balls than he can handle. AND they are getting heavier. It’s one thing for an apple like in the title pic to fall and hit his foot. Quite another if it’s say a sixteen ounce shot-put (hey, the summer Olympics are coming) and the extra weight isn’t just more difficult to handle (I tried once back in h.s.) but would hurt like hell falling on top of one’s foot. It’s getting to the point where it will be like him trying to juggle bowling balls.

Look, the guy’s as slippery as a greased, rabid pig so I won’t say he’s caught and butchered until he’s actually hanging dead on the meat hook and gutted. So to speak. Still, I think we might be getting to that point sooner than we think.