Trump hired private investigator to check work done by his E. Jean Carroll lawyers: report

A political action committee closely tied to Donald Trump's re-election bid recently spent close to a quarter of a million dollars to investigate the quality of work of his legal team which has now suffered two losses to E. Jean Carroll and her attorneys.

According to an exclusive report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, FEC filings submitted this week show that the former president's Save America PAC made payments of $238,100 in the last six months to CTS Research, a New York-based private investigator firm, after paying the company another $152,285 earlier in the year.

According to the Beast, Trump insiders confirmed the expenditures were made to check out whether Trump's team had tracked down and interviewed any witnesses who could help him in his sexual assault and defamation cases that ultimately led to a combined $88.3 million in damages over two trials.

Those attorneys likely include controversial lead attorney Alina Habba, who is reportedly on the outs with Trump and associate Michael Madaio.

The report notes, "According to the person familiar with the matter, the private detective discovered that an early iteration of Trump’s legal team failed to interview several witnesses in the Carroll case — something that should have been a basic step in defending the former president. But the private investigator expense is an extraordinarily unusual one to place on a PAC."

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The report goes on to note that the money spent is just a tiny sliver of the funds being diverted from the embattled ex-president's re-election campaign to fend off multiple lawsuits and criminal indictments.

As the Beast's Pagliery wrote, "At this point, it’s clear prosecutors aren’t the only ones causing Trump’s legal headaches; his own lawyers, and his suspicions of ineptitude, seem to be in his head too."

You can read more about Trump's legal expenditures here.