Chris Christie is right: What Trump is doing is “disgraceful” but we know the GOP base loves it

There is no bottom to this GOP.

If you every get charged with even one felony—and I very much hope you don’t--you will soon realize how pricey your legal fees are. I can attest that firsthand. No, I was never charged with a felony but I am a former trial lawyer.

That is why Donald Trump is hemorrhaging money given he is charged in two different jurisdictions—New York state and federal crimes venued in Florida-- totaling 74 felony charges against him. And it’s highly likely Trump will soon be charged in two other jurisdictions as a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. appears close to handing down an indictment for Jan 6 related crimes and in Fulton County, Georgia for Trump allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results there after he lost. Add to that, Trump has been not only paying his own legal costs but also the legal fees for certain co-defendants and advisors. 

The off the chart legal costs—as the NY Times reported Saturday—for all of this totals roughly $56 million over the past two years. That helps explain the NY Times reporting  that the political action committee, Save America, Trump uses to pay his legal fees recently requested a refund on a $60 million contribution it made to another group.  (It appears that a more accurate name for that PAC is “Save Trump from Prison.”)

Keep in mind Trump began raising funds for this PAC after he lost the 2020 election by seeking—as the NY Times noted— “small-dollar donations” based on the claim he needed the money to fight “widespread fraud” in the race. Of course, no evidence of such fraud was ever found.

As time went on, Trump began raising funds for his 2024 campaign. However, he later began diverting a larger percentage of every dollar he raised online away from his election campaign coffers and into his PAC used to pay for his lawyers.

This is why former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—who is vying for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination against Trump—recently slammed Trump’s funneling of money donors gave to his campaign to pay his personal  legal fees as “disgraceful.” Christie explained, “He’s going to middle class men and women in this country and they’re donating $15, $25, $50, $100 because they believe in Donald Trump and they want him to be president again.” The fiery New Jersey ex-governor added, “They’re not giving that money so he can pay his personal legal fees.”

(To avoid any misconceptions about my citing the words of Christie let me paraphrase Shakespeare: I have come not to praise Christie, but to further bury Trump! As Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar that I believe applies to all the former Trumpers—like Christie—who enabled him the past but have now allegedly seen the light: “The evil that men [and women] do lives after them.”)

Is what the man facing 74 felonies doing even legal?! The NY Times reported campaign finance experts are divided on if Trump is legally permitted to continue to use the PAC to pay for his personal legal bills given he formerly became a presidential candidate last November.  However, Paul Seamus Ryan, a campaign finance expert, recently told The Washington Post he did not see any “legal red flags” with the PAC paying Trump’s fees.

But it was what Ryan said after that line which sums up so well Trump supporters: “At the end of the day it’s up to the donors to decide if that’s the way they want their money spent” He added, “My sense is if you’re giving money to Trump in 2023, you’re fine with it.”

Christie and Ryan are both right. It is disgraceful that Trump is using funds from small donors that they believed would fund his campaign for his own personal legal woes. But at the same time, I don’t hear any Trump supporters complaining that the funds are being used to fund his legal defense.

Perhaps that is tied to Trump repeatedly telling his followers—as he did again Saturday at his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania—that not only is the justice system “weaponized” against him, but next they are coming for his supporters.  Trump point blank on Saturday bellowed that very point to the crowd: "They're not indicting me. They're indicting you…I'm just standing in the way."  Trump then added to big cheers, “They want to take away my freedom because they want to take away your freedom…and I will never let that happen.”

While we don’t know how many Trump supporters believe Trump’s outrageous—bordering on laughable—words, we do know that more than 60 percent of GOP voters believe Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen. It doesn’t matter that Trump could not produce credible evidence of fraud or that Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr called Trump’s election fraud claims “detached from reality” and judges Trump personally appointed rejected his claims.

We are not dealing with people moved by facts—they are only moved by what their beloved Trump tells them. Once again, this is what a fascist movement looks like in 2023—as I’ve written about many times in the past.

However, back on planet Earth, even Trump grasps that campaign dollars are both limited and precious. In fact, during his rally Saturday, Trump called on the other GOP presidential candidates to end their respective campaigns and rally behind him, declaring, “Every dollar spent attacking me by Republicans is a dollar given straight to the Biden campaign.” He added, they are “wasting hundreds of millions of dollars that Republicans should be using to build a massive vote-gathering operation” to take on Biden in November.

Same obviously can be said about Trump spending more than $56 million and counting in campaign donations for his legal defense. And that is even before his lawyers have prepared for various trials—which is exorbitantly expensive. Worse for Trump. fundraising numbers for the second quarter of this year show President Biden raising more than $72 million—doubling the $35 million Trump raised in the same period.

Trump will of course paint himself as the victim and raise money from supporters off being indicted. But even Trump knows the more he is spending on legal fees, the less he has to spend on his 2024 campaign. The question is how much more money will Trump donors give him to stay out of jail as opposed to helping the GOP win the White House in 2024?! To be brutally honest, let’s hope they keep shelling out money now so that there are few financial resources left for Trump come later 2024!

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