The Republican National Committee saw a large exodus of supporters upon now former Chair Rona McDaniels’ resignation and the subsequent installment of Donald Trump’s hand-picked operatives, Michael Whatley as chair and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.
Many of the RNC’s now-former supporters openly expressed their distaste with the decision to essentially turn the RNC into yet another Trump PAC meant to foot the scandal-plagued former president’s mounting legal bills rather than help install Republicans into office across the country and in the White House, as the committee was meant to do.
Both Whatley and Lara attempted to convince the masses that their concerns and disappointment were unfounded but folks just weren’t buying it — and rightfully so, as a recent Trump deal just made a liar out of everyone.
Earlier this month, new RNC Chair Michael Whatley was asked flat-out on Fox News if the committee would be directing donated funds to cover the cost of Donald Trump’s neverending legal bills.
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“Look, the president’s campaign has made it perfectly clear that they are not going to ask for any of those legal funds to be coming out of the RNC. So, that’s a done deal,” Whatley told Fox News at the time.
Lara Trump echoed a similar sentiment when she told Fox News, “We’re not paying any legal bills from the RNC.”
Back in February, before she was officially elected as co-chair of the RNC, Trump’s daughter-in-law told Newsmax, “Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC: that is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.”
According to new reporting from the Associated Press, that simply is not the case after all.
Donald Trump’s campaign recently struck a deal with the RNC to divert donations originally made to the committee to his campaign and his Save America political action committee — the very same Save America PAC that’s been footing his rapidly growing legal bills. Just last year alone, reports confirmed that Trump’s campaign spent $50 million of donor money on his legal expenses alone last year.
The AP reports:
The unorthodox diversion of funds to the Save America PAC makes it more likely that Republican donors could see their money go to Trump’s lawyers, who have received at least $76 million over the last two years to defend him against four felony indictments and multiple civil cases. Some Republicans are already troubled that Trump’s takeover of the RNC could shortchange the cash-strapped party.”
To make Lara’s public image that much worse here, Trump’s daughter-in-law initiated what has been described as a “bloodbath” within the RNC, firing more than 60 staffers within just days of assuming her new co-chair role.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
