By Jason Lange and Alexandra Ulmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of Donald Trump’s main fundraising groups on Monday reported spending more than $21 million on legal expenses so far this year, a sign of the former president’s mounting legal problems as he seeks to return to the White House.
However, the sum reported was much less than major media had expected.
The Save America group, which Trump founded in 2020 following his defeat in that year’s presidential election, said in a filing to the Federal Election Commission that it spent about $30 million between January and June, with most of that going to legal expenses.
Save America is formally separate from Trump’s 2024 election campaign, but it has been a major funder of another group that is spending heavily on ads supporting Trump.
Several large U.S. media organizations, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, had reported over the weekend, citing anonymous sources, that Save America’s filing would show as much as $40 million in spending on legal expenses.
Save America had previously reported spending more than $16 million on legal expenses through 2022, though on Monday the group filed a number of amended reports on its finances for previous years.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the difference in the numbers reported over the weekend and those in Monday’s filing.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Sonali Paul)
