President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign racked up over $1 million in legal consulting fees from July through September, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
Money spent during the third quarter of 2017 is close to double the president’s fund-raising committee budget for legal fees during the previous three-month period, campaign reports filed Sunday show.
Various reports Sunday suggested that most of the funds have been funnelled towards the probe into alleged ties between Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign.
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According to USA Today, the fees included more than $237,900 to Alan Futerfas, the New York lawyer representing Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, in the ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
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Futerfas’ firm responded to inquiries regarding Trump Jr.’s activity during the campaign and to a meeting he held in Trump Tower in 2016 with Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, ostensibly on the premise of getting dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. More than $130,000 has been directed to Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who is also said to have assisted in the Russian probe saga.
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There is nothing illegal about tapping into donors’ money for legal expenses, under the proviso they are directly related to the political campaign. The growing legal bills account for more than a quarter of the campaign’s total outgoings of $4.1 million in the third quarter. But the campaign is far from running out of money, having started this month with more than $18 million in cash reserves.