Trump’s Deal With R.N.C. Prioritizes PAC Paying His Lawyers

Former President Donald J. Trump’s new shared fund-raising agreement with the Republican National Committee directs a portion of donations to the political account he has used to pay his legal bills before any money goes to the party itself.

The order in which entities will receive funds from big donors through what is known as the Trump 47 Committee was disclosed in the fine print of an invitation to a big dinner next month in Palm Beach, Fla., where top donors are asked to contribute up to $814,600 per person to attend.

The invitation shows that the first $6,600 donated will go to Mr. Trump’s campaign. The next $5,000 will go to his Save America PAC, which paid more than $50 million in legal and investigation-related bills for Mr. Trump in 2023. The $5,000 amount is the maximum that federal rules say can be contributed to Save America by an individual.

After that, the R.N.C. gets the next $413,000, followed by dozens of state parties.

In practice, what that means is that even modestly large contributors — anything above $6,600 — will fund the account that Mr. Trump has used to defray legal costs. And the fund-raising agreement came as Save America, which has averaged roughly $5 million a month in legal payments for Mr. Trump and witnesses in his cases, is on course to run low on funds as the spring ends.

The prioritization of Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC before the Republican National Committee was first reported by The Associated Press.

The new fund-raising agreement comes shortly after Mr. Trump has functionally taken over the R.N.C. as the presumptive Republican nominee. He pushed to install a new chairman, Michael Whatley, and to have his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair.