Donald Trump leaves after a Hispanic Heritage Month event in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 6, 2017 (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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Donald Trump will not be on the ballot when Americans go to the polls a week from today, but his political machinery is still raising and shelling out more money than most midterm candidates. Some of the places Trump’s groups are spending: his own properties, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings. Since losing the 2020 election, the former president has turned more than $1.4 million of donor money into business revenue by charging his political entities for lodging, food, rent and travel expenses.
One of the largest payments occurred about a month ago, when a group named Save America handed Trump’s hotel empire $82,000, according to FEC filings. Save America is classified as a leadership PAC, the type of entity that politicians often use to spread money around to their allies. Trump, who has collected $139 million via Save America, seems to be hoarding the bulk of the cash. Save America has spent $69 million, but records show only $25 million of that has gone to other committees, with the majority covering operating expenses, including payments to Trump’s properties.
This should not come as much of a surprise. Between the time he took office and the day he lost the 2020 election, Trump pushed $2.7 million of campaign money into his private business. Millions more flowed into the Trump Organization from the Republican National Committee and the former president’s joint-fundraising committees. From Election Day to the end of 2020, Trump’s political groups spent another $484,000 at his properties, according to an analysis of filings. The majority of that came via a single payment, $294,000 that went to the Trump Hotel Collection on November 12, nine days after voters went to the polls.
In 2021, Trump left office, but the money continued to move, with the president’s joint-fundraising committees, leadership PAC and old campaign funneling $729,000 into his business. More than half of that came in the form of rent. Trump Tower Commercial LLC, the entity that owns the office and retail space inside Trump’s Fifth Avenue skyscraper, collected $375,000. That building had experienced declining profits, thanks to increased property tax bills. The political payments helped to provide a small boost.
Donald Trump, his business empire and his political committees did not respond to requests for comment.
In February 2022, 15 months after the 2020 campaign ended, Trump’s committees finally made their last rent payment to Trump Tower on record. Since then, the spending has been mainly gone to Trump’s hotels. Save America has handed out most of it, paying $146,000 this year, according to federal filings.
Other groups have chipped in here and there. In August 2022, a joint-fundraising outfit named the Trump-Graham Majority Fund, which raises cash for both Save America and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s reelection campaign, paid $17,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection. That was the single largest payment that the Trump Organization received from one of the president’s groups this year—until Save America wrote its $82,000 check on Sept. 29.