Trump fundraising PAC diverted millions to help Ivanka pay legal bills: report

A political fundraising committee tied to former President Donald Trump has diverted $2.3 million to pay the legal bills of former first daughter Ivanka Trump, reportedBusiness Insider on Tuesday.

"The group, called Save America PAC, spent a combined $2.3 million in 2023 for two law firms that represented Ivanka Trump, his eldest daughter, according to a Business Insider review of Federal Election Commission records," reported Jacob Sherman. "The PAC spent an additional $5.3 million on the law firm Robert & Robert, which represented his three eldest children — Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump, Jr. — as well as the Trump Organization in an array of lawsuits that have no apparent relation to Trump's campaign to retake the presidency in the 2024 election."

"Trump founded Save America shortly after he lost the 2020 presidential election," noted the report. "He's used it as his primary fundraising vehicle, often sending out messages making false claims about the 2020 election and his legal problems to convince donors to give it money."

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Among the uses of the legal aid, the report continued, was to defend Ivanka from the civil fraud trial that alleged Trump and his adult children systematically committed fraud by manipulating the value of their properties in order to get more favorable tax and loan treatment. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $370 million in fines and the dissolution of the Trump Organization in that case, which is set to be decided by Judge Arthur Engoron later this month.

Ivanka herself, incidentally, is no longer a named party in that case, as a court ruled her involvement in the Trump Organization fell outside the statute of limitations.

"In 2020, he raised tens of millions of dollars for the PAC by making baseless claims of a stolen election and casting the PAC as an 'Official Election Defense Fund,'" Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) research director Robert Maguire told Insider. "Since then, the committee has largely become a vehicle for paying his, his family's, and his associates' legal bills, while also channeling tens of millions to a pro-Trump super PAC."