As Team Trump Lawyers Up, Who's Paying The Attorney Fees? President Trump's re-election campaign paid Donald Trump Jr.'s lawyer $50,000. White House lawyers are paid government salaries, by taxpayers, but it's unknown how the private lawyers are being paid.
Miller and Kasowitz did not respond to requests for comment on the payment to the firm. The MAGA PAC paid the law offices of Michael van der Veen just over $575,000. Van der Veen and Bruce Castor, who also works at the firm, were part of Trump’s second impeachment defense team.
The payments started in early January after multiple lawsuits from Trump and his Republican allies were tossed out in key states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan. The checks continued to go to legal firms through Trump’s impeachment trial, where he was impeached for a second time by the House and exonerated by the Senate.
Like Clinton, Trump has a platoon of private lawyers in addition to the White House counsel. While the White House lawyers are paid government salaries, by taxpayers, the Trump White House has not indicated how much the private lawyers are being paid, or by whom.
True North Law, which led a failed fight in swing state Michigan, was paid over $270,000 for its services in January by the same committee. Harvey & Binnall, which was involved in a failed legal fight in Nevada, received over $300,000 in payments from January through June by the Trump PAC, according to the filings.
That firm led failed legal fights in Georgia. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kurt Hilbert , a founder of the firm, was on an infamous January phone call between Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump urged Raffensperger to overturn then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Trump’s political action committees spent $7.9 million on legal matters related to the 2020 recount and his impeachment fight.
The checks continued to go to legal firms through Trump’s impeachment trial, where he was impeached for a second time by the House and exonerated by the Senate. Some payments to legal advisors were as recent as June.
Jenna Ellis, one of Trump’s legal advisors during the recount, was paid more than $22,000 for her services.
Trump’s lawyers reaped a windfall during his impeachment trial.
None of the FEC records shows legal service payments to Rudy Giuliani, who has called the president a client and publicly challenged the results of the election.
The Magnitsky Act. The latest Trump associate to hire a lawyer is Donald Trump Jr. Based on his own emails and interviews, he eagerly attended a meeting in 2016 with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who he believed had opposition research on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
When Hillary Clinton ran for Senate in 2000, as her husband was winding down his presidency, her personal financial disclosure showed they owed lawyers somewhere between $2.3 million and $10.6 million. Disclosures in later years indicated the Clintons paid up.
Trump spoke up for his son in Paris last week. "I have a son who's a great young man," the president said. "He's a fine person. He took a meeting with a lawyer from Russia. It lasted a very short period. And nothing came of the meeting."
While the White House lawyers are paid government salaries, by taxpayers, the Trump White House has not indicated how much the private lawyers are being paid, or by whom. This kind of legal representation doesn't come cheap.
In many cases, there can be an appeal from the ruling of the trial court to an appellate court, although the appellate court may rule that the issue appealed was not appropriate to bring to the appellate court because the action of the trial court was only “interlocutory,” and may not properly be appealed until the entire case becomes “final” in the trial court.
But … even if the appellate court rules that the appeal was improperly taken to the appellate court, the losing party may appeal *that* decision to the supreme court. And after some amount of time and a great deal of briefing and argument, the supreme court will rule on whether the appeal to the appellate court was properly taken or not. And return the case to the appellate court, which will then alter its ruling or enforce it, depending on what action the supreme court has taken.
Unless I'm mistaken, it appears that Donald Trump pays his lawyers via the Eric Trump Foundation. This is particularly smart as it protects his assets if/when he gets sued. Link will take you directly to more information:
President Trump pays a number of attorneys, likely in different ways.
The important point here is that no money is coming out of Trump pockets. Not bad for billionaire who doesn’t spend any money not even on a present for his wife’s birthday.
Now, attorneys do work under ethical rules that require them not to take any of these actions in bad faith, or purely for the purpose of delay.
Plus this, the attorneys take time to prepare and serve sets of “interrogatories,” or formal questions that must be answered under oath by the other side. And the other side must spend considerable time helping the client to answer each set of interrogatories .
Self-proclaimed billionaire President Donald Trump is turning to rich Republican party donors to help cover the costs of some of his hefty legal fees related to investigations into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. Government watchdog advocates say that move breaks political norms and escalates the power wealthy people have over politics. Effectively, the big donors can offset Trump’s personal costs by donating to the legal fund, lining his pockets without directly handing over money.
Robert and Diana Mercer both gave almost $100k each to the legal fund in August—after it had been reported that the funds could soon be used to help ease the Russia scandal’s burden on Trump’s personal bottom line. No surprise here: The Mercers are awash in influence with the Trump administration, and the family backed him early and heavily. They’re Breitbart funders; daughter Rebekah Mercer was on the transition team.
In short, he doesn’t appear to be a Trump fanboy as much as a fanboy for capitalism (and deregulation of financial markets).
Charles Schwab maxed out his legal fund donation in July. In an odds-defying coincidence, his 21-year-old granddaughter Samantha had a “volunteer” job in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs as of spring. The elder Schwab also gave bigly to the inauguration, and given his financial industry ties, he is likely bigly interested in rolling back financial regulations.
Richard and Suzanne Kayne are big donors to UCLA. Richard founded Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, which deals heavily in oil and gas and energy infrastructure—pipelines. He’s donated to various other Republican campaigns.
The RNC gave Trump the legal fees amid an investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to help sway the 2016 presidential election. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Mueller asked the White House for documents related to several questionable actions by Trump, including a meeting he had with Russian officials the day after F.B.I. Director James Comey was fired.
Though Trump raised about $175 million in a joint venture with the Republican National Committee, he spent just $10 million on legal costs while spending nearly $50 million on ads and fundraising, according to The New York Times. The RNC likewise spent little of its portion of the funds on legal efforts. Most of the funds were raised from small-dollar donations as many of Trump's top donors avoided contributing to his effort.
Trump, who is charged with inciting the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, was "livid" after Bowers told him that the legal effort would cost $3 million, according to the report, even though Trump has raised over $170 million from supporters , ostensibly to fund his post-election legal efforts. Trump and Bowers initially agreed ...
Some lawyers who turned him down told The Washington Post that Trump is an "unappealing client" because he "has trouble" following legal advice, is overly concerned with how his lawyers perform on TV, and "is known for not paying his bills."
Trump and Bowers initially agreed that the latter would be paid $250,000, which "delighted" the billionaire, according to the report. But that fee did not include additional costs for other lawyers, researchers and legal fees. Trump was "infuriated" after Bowers told him the total budget would be $3 million, though he ultimately haggled the attorney down to $1 million while planning to use his political action committee to pay for "audiovisuals, a rapid-response team and legislative liaison."
Former President Donald Trump's legal team for his upcoming impeachment trial quit following a dispute about the cost of his defense, according to Axios.
Trump announced on Sunday that attorneys David Schoen and Bruce Castor would represent him at the trial.
Democrats say the Constitution does not allow former presidents to escape trial simply due to the timing of an impeachable offense.