Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump, believes one government agency could be the key to disrupting the former president’s donor base as he embarks on another term in the White House.
Trump’s presidential campaign is occurring simultaneously as he fights 91 felony counts that include allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, retaining classified documents, falsifying business records and attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in Georgia. Trump has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The legal battles have led to a surplus in donor money, however, as the campaign said in October that they raised more than $45.5 million in the third quarter—vastly outpacing DeSantis and other Republican hopefuls. Using fundraiser dollars toward legal counsel is legal based on what the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has ruled on political action committees.
“If Donald loses the ability to rely on his rubes to fund his legal bills, his political ambitions would be ruined,” Mary Trump wrote in a Substack post published on Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported that Trump’s Save America political action committee has paid nearly $37 million to more than 60 law firms and individual attorneys since January 2022, citing FEC records—a total amounting to more than half of the PAC’s total expenditures.
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More than $20 million of the committee’s money was spent on legal bills just during the first half of this year, exceeding the total amounts spent by the Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee combined.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.
Mary Trump argues that Trump’s donor dollars footing his legal costs is directly due to the lack of enforcement by the FEC, imploring individuals to contact and encourage the FEC and its chair, Dara Lindenbaum, to take responsibility instead of letting such behavior continue.
Newsweek reached out to Mary Trump via email for comment.
Frances Hill, a law professor at the University of Miami who has long studied election and campaign laws, told Newsweek via phone that persuading the FEC is likely akin to a fool’s errand due to both a general lack of enforcement and the majority of the public turning a blind eye towards traditional campaign finance regulations.
“It is important but finding any sort of coherent answer is not realistic because I believe everything now is so over-mingled that the FEC has no place carved out in the law that would allow it to do anything at all about anyone’s use of money in a political campaign,” Hill said.
She alluded to the various political action committees and charities that donate money to political candidates, Donald Trump or otherwise, which is difficult to trace and/or the FEC doesn’t have the authority or institutional capacity to stay on top of such transactions.
Hill even questions the role of the FEC itself and why someone would want to serve on it within the past 10-15 years due to the amounts of money being injected into political campaigns.
“It seems to be a part of the government which has no principles and standards at all is perfect for the time we live in,” she said. “I think it’s wrong to say there are rules and if we could get data we could figure it out.
“Everyone has gotten used to utter corruption. And I’m not saying every candidate is utterly corrupt, but the idea that we can trace that money is wishful thinking. It’s just a situation where people who might have something good about them have just lowered themselves to play in this arena of total badness.”
The long-term solution doesn’t rest on commissions like the FEC but on the American people, she added.
“Until people stand up and say that we have to do better, we won’t,” she said.
The ex-president is far and away the GOP front-runner based on months of polling showing him ahead of his rivals, with a recent polling average from FiveThirtyEight showing him more than 45 points ahead of his nearest opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.