Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
According to a report from the Washington Post on Donald Trump's exploding "legal perils," some advisers in the former president's circle are fretting New York Attorney General Letitia James may be inflicting reputational damage to Trump by exposing him as quite a bit less wealthy than he has convinced his fans he is.
As the report notes, Trump has numerous legal problems that are buffeting him from all sides, including a grand jury in Georgia looking into election fraud accusations, the DOJ battling the president over the theft of secret documents that could lead to an indictment under the Espionage Act or obstruction charges and the charges James made this week about real estate fraud.
As the Post reports, "Trump now has more than a dozen lawyers working on various probes against him, with financial support for their efforts coming from both the Republican National Committee and his political committee, Save America. There are separate sets of lawyers for each of the investigations. His political team has tried to cheer him up at times with positive tweets and other conservative news articles that he shares through his PAC’s website."
According to one associate, "He just rolls on and acts like all these things, at least to everyone around him, aren’t slowing him down.”
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However, that hasn't kept his inner circle from worrying about the reality of the situation they all find themselves in.
"Among Trump’s advisers, the Jan. 6 investigation from the Justice Department and the Mar-a-Lago document probe are widely viewed as the most wide-ranging and perilous to Trump and his inner circle," the report states before adding, "But some advisers fear the biggest political damage could be done by James, as his wealth has long been part of his mystique to Republican voters."
Earlier this year, CNN reported that more and more questions were being raised about Trump's actual wealth, with political analysis Chris Cillizza recalling the former president made "his wealth front and center" when he first announced his 2016 presidential bid.
At that time, Trump stated, "I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself. That’s a huge advantage. I must tell you, that’s a huge advantage over the other candidates.”