Trump, RNC legal bills top $5M in 2017

Source: Politico




By MAGGIE SEVERNS 01/31/2018 07:01 PM EST Updated 02/01/2018 08:04 AM EST

President Donald Trump’s campaign spent more than $1 million on legal fees during the final three months of 2017, according to a new filing late Wednesday with the FEC.

Combined with the Republican National Committee, Trump's campaign paid a total of $5.5 million in legal bills during 2017 amid probes into Russia’s role in the 2016 election. The payments were made to law firms, as well as the company owned by the president’s family.

The Trump campaign and the RNC have previously acknowledged they are helping pay legal bills for Trump family members who are under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees probing whether the Trump campaign played any role in Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election. The new disclosures, however, do not delineate which legal expenses were related to the Russia investigation and which were not.

Spending on legal services is allowed under federal law so long as the expenses were incurred from parts of the investigation related to the Trump campaign. The campaign paid Jones Day, which represented Trump during the campaign, $832,765. The campaign also paid $28,530 to The Trump Corporation and $214,467 to McDermott Will & Emery, which is representing Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen in the Russia probe.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/31/trump-republicans-legal-bills-319821