Donald Trump'sTrump's bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 was off to a modest fundraising start, with his campaign ending the year with about $7 million on hand, while his Save America fund had about $18 million, according to financial disclosures released on Tuesday. The former US president did little campaigning, and did not hit the trail until last Saturday, after a weaker-than-expected Republican performance in midterm congressional elections.
Tuesday's filing with the Federal Election Commission indicates that Trump's fundraising was sluggish, leaving him with a far smaller war chest than the more than US $100 million Save America had on hand through early 2022.
After leaving office in January 2021, Trump remained a prodigious fundraiser, holding regular rallies in which he repeated his false claims that his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud.
But the Save America group that served as his main fundraising arm was registered to fund other campaigns, not Trump's own. It poses legal problems if Trump wants to use Save America funds on his own campaign.
Save America transferred $60 million to a pro-Trump super PAC last year, which is expected to support his presidential run. The Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan watchdog group, asked the election regulators to investigate Save America's money transfers.
Save America's financial disclosure showed that the group spent more than US $3 million on lawyer fees in the final weeks of 2022, according to the group's financial disclosure on Tuesday.