Trump’s fundraising was lagging. Then he said an indictment was imminent.

Former President Donald Trump’s latest campaign finance filing showed how his indictment spurred a last-minute fundraising surge. It also showed he used that money to pay close advisors and top aides while some went to his own properties and businesses.

The former president’s campaign raised $14.5 million during the first quarter of 2023, according to a first-quarter filing with the Federal Election Commission late Saturday. The filing backs up the notion that Trump experienced a fundraising surge linked to talk of the indictment: more than 30 percent of his quarterly fundraising from itemized donors came in during the final 12 days of the quarter, after Trump said on Truth Social that he expected to be arrested, with the greatest surge in the final days, after he was indicted.

Fundraising has long been a point of strength for Trump, as he leveraged Facebook and other digital tools to mobilize a base of GOP small-dollar donors. His joint fundraising committee, Save America, raised more than $100 million in the 2021 calendar year when he was not even a federal candidate.

But Trump’s early presidential campaign initially struggled to keep up the momentum. The fourth quarter of 2022 was Save America’s worst in terms of overall fundraising and it spent more on digital fundraising expenses than it raised in December of last year, according to FEC filings.

Even with the surge in revenue linked to the indictment, Trump’s first-quarter numbers still trail where he was at the same time in 2019, when he was running for reelection. That could be due to the fact that donor cash is being spread out among his GOP challengers or that donors are waiting to see how the primary plays out. The campaign of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the most prominent other Republican to announce so far, reported raising $5.1 million for her campaign over the three months. Vivek Ramaswany, who has never held office, reported raising around $850,000 from donors.

While Trump has several other political groups, only his campaign was required to file a report with the FEC on Saturday, so the full magnitude of his expenses during the first quarter is not clear. His joint fundraising committee appeared to shift strategy this quarter, including cutting back on text messaging after long sending many users as many as three texts per day.

Trump’s campaign committee still reported spending $3.5 million over the first three months of the year, with payroll occupying the single greatest expense, with roughly two dozen campaign employees on staff. The campaign also paid nearly $500,000 to Tag Air Inc., a Trump-owned company that operates his airplanes.

Other expenses included $122,000 to Advancing Strategies, LLC, which is helmed by Chris LaCivita; more than $80,000 to Georgetown Advisory, the firm founded by former Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn, for legal consulting and communications services; as well as more than $75,000 to Compass Legal Group, headed by former Trump administration lawyer Scott Gast; and $30,000 to Belmont Strategies, a consulting firm headed by Andrew Surabian, an aide to Donald Trump Jr.

The campaign also spent just over $4,000 at Trump’s trademark Mar-a-Lago Club.