Trump, DeSantis aides spar over former president’s spending on legal fees

Aides to GOP rivals Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are trading barbs over news that the former president has spent more than $40 million so far in 2023 on legal fees as part of ongoing investigations into his conduct.

Multiple reports indicated the Trump-aligned PAC Save America was set to disclose the legal expenditures in a filing Monday. The expenses for legal costs for Trump and others in his orbit are the former president’s highest cost by far as he faces charges in Florida and New York and ongoing investigations in Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

Andrew Romeo, a DeSantis campaign spokesperson, seized on the figure and argued it was evidence of the Trump team’s misplaced priorities.

“Trump has spent over $60 million on 2 things: falsely attacking DeSantis and paying his own legal fees, not a cent on defeating Biden,” Romeo said. “DeSantis’s sole focus, by contrast, has been campaigning for this country’s future, defeating Biden, and reversing the decline of America.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, shot back that DeSantis’s campaign was taking an “un-American” position.

“Ron DeSantis and his campaign are disgustingly siding with Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, and the January 6th Unselect Committee,” Cheung said in a statement. “They would rather defend Crooked Joe Biden and his weaponized Department of Justice than the innocent people who are being targeted by these political witch-hunts. Only desperate idiots and un-American morons would take the position the DeSantis team has taken.”

In a separate statement, Cheung defended the PAC’s spending on legal fees for the former president and his aides, saying it was necessary to “protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed.”

Trump’s legal problems have loomed over the 2024 Republican primary, with most candidates including DeSantis largely avoiding direct attacks on the former president over his two indictments thus far this year and the two ongoing investigations into his attempts to subvert the 2020 election.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday underscored underscored that Trump’s grip on the primary remains largely unshaken despite those legal troubles.

The poll found Trump leading DeSantis, 54 percent to 17 percent, among likely Republican primary voters, while no other candidate reached more than 3 percent support.

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