Trump sets up fund to cover allies' legal bills: report

Former President Donald Trump’s team is setting up a fund dedicated to paying legal bills involving the indictment and investigations into him and his codefendants, the New York Times reported Sunday.

The Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc. will be headed by Trump’s longtime political adviser Michael Glassner and Lynne Patton, who worked at the Trump Organization and in his presidential administration, the Times wrote.

A source speaking to The Times said the fund was not expected to pay Trump’s own legal fees, instead helping others charged beside him or who are witnesses in the criminal investigations.

An earlier Times report Sunday revealed that Trump’s political action committee has paid legal bills of more than $40 million.

A Trump spokesman told The Times that the Department of Justice had, “targeted innocent Americans associated with President Trump,” and that the fund was being set up to “protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed.

Trump has been charged with several crimes involving classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He is also facing a criminal trial in New York involving hush money payments that were made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

He is expected to be indicted in two other investigations into attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

He has two codefendents in the classified document case, employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.