Nearly a quarter of all expenditures this year by a Donald Trump-supporting super PAC reportedly paid for a single lavish event at — wait for it — his golf resort Mar-a-Lago.
New York Times reporters Kenneth Vogel and Shane Goldmacher wrote about the February event earlier this year, describing it as an “elaborate forum” for candidates endorsed by Trump and donors who gave as much as $125,000 per person to the super PAC Make America Great Again, Again! Inc. — which bankrolled the event.
Now Goldmacher has the receipts. The get-together cost an eye-popping $318,000, which was nearly a fourth of the PAC’s total expenditures so far this year, he noted.
The super PAC’s single largest line item for the first quarter of the year was the money to Mar-a-Lago for “event expense: facility rental and catering services,” Politico noted.
Other funding groups also paid tribute to Trump via Mar-a-Lago. Documents show controversial GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, endorsed by Trump, paid $81,000 to Mar-a-Lago in late February.
Campaign donor money shoveled into the pockets of the Trump Organization is nothing new. But it’s continuing as much as ever even though the former president is no longer in office — nor has he officially announced yet whether he’s running for the presidency in the next election.
Some $10.5 million in political donations to Trump and to other Republican candidates and fundraising organizations was funneled into Trump businesses during his presidency through November 2020, according to an analysis by HuffPost.
Trump’s spending doesn’t just involve political events. He spent $375,000 in political donations for rent at Manhattan’s Trump Tower last year ― even though his political committees and staff had no presence in the building, HuffPost reported.
“It’s a huge scam,” said one former aide with direct knowledge of Trump’s political spending. “I can’t believe his base lets him get away with it.”