Former President Donald Trump must come up with $440 million to repay the judgments against him, and he cannot use any of his sources of political funding to do so.
Can Trump use campaign funds to pay the judgments against him?
No. Trump cannot use campaign funds or his fundraising apparatus to raise money to pay sentences.
Politico reported:
Using his political tools to pay would be much more complicated. There is a general prohibition on using campaign donations for personal uses unrelated to a campaign or an official’s official duties. And as for his political action committees, Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at New York University Law School, said they cannot pay Trump’s sentences.
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“Campaign funds cannot be used for this purpose regardless of whether the PAC is the decision maker,” he wrote in an email.
Even if the PACs could pay for it, they don’t have the money. Trump is using his super PACs to cover his legal bills, and they are virtually drained of cash.
Can Trump Use the RNC to Pay Judgments?
The RNC is a nonprofit organization and could lose its status if it tries to repay the $440 million Trump owes. A more significant problem for the RNC is that it is already virtually broke. Things are so bad at the RNC that they were discussing borrowing money to keep the organization afloat because it saw a drop in donations with Trump at the helm and also paid Trump’s legal bills.
Even with Trump’s daughter-in-law soon to become co-president and the former president personally choosing the next president, the RNC doesn’t have the money and is trying to pay off Trump’s debts, even though that wouldn’t violate their non-status as profit, could cause the organization of the Republican Party to fail.
How can Trump pay these sentences?
There’s been a lot of talk about the Truth Social merger that could net Trump billions of dollars because it cleared an SEC hurdle, but that merger is mired in investigations and lawsuits. It’s unclear whether that will ever happen and it certainly won’t happen fast enough to get Trump out of his current predicament.
Since Trump has vested ownership of his assets in the Trump Organization, he will likely have to sell them to pay what he owes. Trump cannot appeal these rulings without posting bail for the full amount, so he will have to provide $440 million no matter what.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association