Donald Trump begging Republican Party to foot legal bills: ‘Profoundly embarrassing' (msn.com)
Donald Trump is turning to the Republican Party to help pay his legal fees in an "embarrassing" development for the former President, an expert tells Daily Express US.
In recent months, Trump has lost multiple legal battles leaving him with hundreds of millions of dollars to pay in fines.
The biggest related to his New York fraud trial, in which the judge ruled he must pay $354million having found him to have inflated the value of his assets. With interest, he will have to pay more than $400million.
He was also ordered to pay $5million to writer E. Jean Carroll in a sexual assault civil case, and then later l ost a $83million defamation suit against her.
This has coincided with Trump's bid to return to the White House.
While Trump has stormed to victory in the Republican primaries, an expert tells Daily Express US that Trump is f acing serious financial difficulty that could hurt his campaign.
Paul Quirk, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, said: "The penalties, totaling more than $500 million, could affect Trump's campaign funding if he tries to divert money from his political fund-raising organization or the Republican Party to pay them. There has been no sign of his doing that yet.
"But has already tapped both sources for help paying his legal bills. So it would not be surprising if he tries it for the penalties.
"The financial penalties are profoundly embarrassing for him, at least because they are penalties for serious misconduct, and potentially because his difficulty paying them will expose inflated claims he makes about his wealth and business success.
"If the attorney general of New York ends up seizing some of Trump's properties to collect the $400million in penalties from the civil fraud case, he will look weaker and less successful than how he portrays himself.
Trump was ordered to pay $83million to Carroll© Getty
"In large part because of Trump's legal expenses, his fundraising operations and the national Republican Party are just about broke."
Trump may have issues if he is looking to get cash from the Republican Party, however.
Mississippi Republican National Committee member Henry Barbour submitted papers in February seeking to stop the GOP from giving Trump financial aid.
He said at the time: "The RNC's job is to win elections. It's not to pay the legal bills for any leading candidate. He's got to fight his own legal fight." |
