Donald Trump is putting together a candlelight dinner fundraiser with his sons at his Mar-a-Lago resort club this fall to help foot the legal bills for the co-defendants in his four separate criminal cases, sources familiar with the matter told The Messenger.
The precise details and date of the dinner for the Patriot Legal Defense Fund are still being finalized, two sources familiar with the planning told veteran Florida reporter Marc Caputo, but the event could raise between $500,000 to $1 million. The dinner will also be "very intimate and exclusive," one anonymous Trump official added.
The Patriot Legal Defense Fund, established in July, is meant to assist Trump's co-defendants and witnesses in his ongoing cases, operating alongside his Save America PAC, which primarily tackles his legal bills, the sources detailed. Until this summer, Save America covered almost all of the legal fees for the former president, various employees, former staffers, advisors and associates who'd become involved in his array of investigations with the committee spending at least $22 million on legal expenses in the first half of 2023, according to Federal Elections Commission filings.
"Save America wasn't really designed as a legal defense fund, so as the legal landscape evolved, so did this effort," a Trump official with knowledge of the event planning told The Messenger. "The fact is that the Department of Justice is trying to bankrupt people and make them drown under legal bills, but Donald Trump is not going to let them." Trump's gamut of legal battles has proven lucrative with 10 percent of each dollar raised from donations going to Save America. Most recently, he raised about $10 million after posting the mugshot he received at the Fulton County Jail online, which means the mugshot earned him $1 million in legal defense.
