How Donald Trump's criminal conviction boosted his campaign fundraising machine

Throughout his 2024 campaign, former President Donald Trump has managed to keep his political operation afloat by walking a delicate financial tightrope. The guilty verdict in a Manhattan hush money case added to a long list of legal challenges that have cost him more than $100 million in donor money to date.

Campaign finance experts say a unique combination of fundraising tactics and legal maneuvers have helped the Trump campaign climb out of a financial sinkhole that raised questions about his ability to compete in the race.  

Since he left the White House in 2020, Trump has taken advantage of a little-known loophole in campaign finance law to pay for his mounting legal costs, which Federal Election Commission filings show amount to around $90,000 per day over the past three years.

Campaign disclosures show Trump has used a web of political action committees, or PACs, to funnel donor money to a leadership PAC he founded called Save America, which is primarily paying his legal bills. These groups are separate from his official campaign and not subject to the same restrictions by the FEC. 

"This has been a problem for years, if not decades," said Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance at the Campaign Legal Center. "Leadership PACs are often used by candidates and officeholders as kind of a slush fund to pay for whatever they want without really any oversight."  

The practice of using political donations for a candidate's legal purposes is not uncommon. Filings show President Joe Biden recently used donations from the Democratic National Committee to pay lawyers in a classified documents case. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who is running for reelection and on trial in an alleged bribery scheme, has spent $2 million in