Donald Trump Has a Big Money Problem (the Millions in Legal Fees He Owes for All of His Alleged Criminal Activity)

Is Donald Trump going to be criminally charged in Georgia for trying to overturn the Peach State’s 2020 election? Obviously no one knows for sure, but if recent comments by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis are anything to go by, the answer is a resounding yes. One group of people who sure seem to believe an indictment is coming? Trump and his attorneys, who recently made a last-ditch attempt to get a judge to disqualify Willis from the case and throw out evidence amassed by a special grand jury. Unfortunately for Team Trump, that judge not only rejected said request but basically told the former guy’s lawyers to stop wasting his time with amateur-hour bullshit.

Yes, on Monday, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney shot down Trump’s appeal, saying the ex-POTUS has no standing to ask for Willis to be disqualified and for the evidence to be scrapped, calling the “injuries” his lawyers claim he’s suffered as a result of the investigation “insufficient,” “speculative,” and “unrealized.” McBurney also essentially accused Trump’s attorneys of making frivolous filings that one might expect of a first-year law student, writing, “In the future, counsel is encouraged to follow the professional standard of inquiring with chamber’s staff about timing and deadlines before burdening other courts with unnecessary and unfounded legal filings.”

And not to mention, McBurney took the opportunity to note that rather than being hurt by the probe, Trump has in fact raised plenty of cash off of the many criminal inquiries and indictments of which he has been the subject: “For some, being the subject of criminal investigation can, à la Rumpelstiltskin, be turned into golden political capital, making it seem more providential than problematic,” McBurney wrote. “Regardless, simply being the subject (or target) of an investigation does not yield standing to bring claim to halt that investigation in court.” As for Trump’s claims of bias on Willis’s part, the judge seemingly used part of his nine-page order to reference Trump’s attacks on Willis, saying, “The drumbeat from the district attorney has been neither partisan (in the political sense) nor political, in marked and refreshing contrast to the stream of personal invective flowing from one of the movants.”

Back in May, Willis announced in a letter sent to Fulton County officials that the majority of her office would work remotely between July 31 and August 18, a move widely believed to indicate that an indictment against Trump could be unsealed during that period. On Saturday, she told Atlanta’s NBC affiliate, “We’ve been working for two and a half years. We’re ready to go.”

In related news, it turns out allegedly committing numerous crimes is quite costly. Per The New York Times:

Former President Donald J. Trump’s political action committee, which began last year with $105 million, now has less than $4 million left in its account after paying tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for Mr. Trump and his associates. The dwindling cash reserves in Mr. Trump’s PAC, called Save America, have fallen to such levels that the group has made the highly unusual request of a $60 million refund of a donation it had previously sent to a pro-Trump super PAC.

The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement. The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.

As the Times notes, while super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money, regular PACs are legally prohibited from accepting donations over $5,000—which has led some to conclude that laws may have been broken when Make America Great refunded money to Save America. “I don’t know that calling it a refund changes the fundamental illegality,” Adav Noti, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission told the Times, adding, “For the super PAC and the Trump PAC to be sending tens of millions dollars back and forth depending upon who needs the money more strongly suggests unlawful financial coordination.”

Also quick to suggest that the refunds were not entirely legit was Ron DeSantis’s campaign, whose rapid-response director told the Times that “MAGA grandmas were scammed” out of their Social Security checks “in order to pay a billionaire’s legal bills.” (In a statement, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign insisted nothing could be further from the truth, saying, “Everything was done in accordance with the law and upon the advice of counsel. Any disgusting insinuation otherwise, especially by Democrat donors, is nothing more than a feeble attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump is dominating this race—both in the polls and with fundraising—and is the only candidate who will beat Crooked Joe Biden.”)