RNC Cannot Pay Trump Legal Bills If He Launches 2024 Bid: Committee Chair

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel speaks at the Republican National Committee winter meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Feb. 4, 2022. Rick Bowmer/AP Photo, File

Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel says the RNC can not pay former President Donald Trump’s legal bills if he makes a bid for the White House in 2024.

“We cannot pay legal bills for any candidate that’s announced,” McDaniel told anchor Dana Bash in an Oct. 6 interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The RNC chair pointed to the New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against Trump, saying, “It was voted on by our executive committee for our former president that this was a politically motivated investigation, and that’s what it’s been.”

Late last year, the RNC reportedly made two payments totaling $121,670 to the law firm of Ronald Fischetti, a veteran defense attorney who was hired to represent Trump as he faced investigations by James and then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

Asked about those bills, McDaniel affirmed that they “came from the Letitia James lawsuit that started while [Trump] was president.”

“But we cannot do in-kind contributions to any candidate right now. He’s the former president being attacked from every which way with lawsuits, and he’s certainly raised more under the RNC than we’ve spent on these bills,” she added.

In early 2021, the RNC declined to back 2024 presidential primary candidates, even if former President Donald Trump chose to run again.

“The party has to stay neutral. I’m not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024,” McDaniel said in the interview with The Associated Press. “That’s going to be up to those candidates going forward. What I really do want to see him do, though, is help us win back majorities in 2022.”

The former president has yet to make any official announcement of the 2024 presidential bid, but has repeatedly teased the possibility that he might run. At the Nov. 3 rally in Iowa, Trump dropped another hint, saying he would “very, very, very, probably do it again.”

When asked by Bash if Trump will announce his run soon, McDaniel said she had no idea.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing for Thanksgiving right now, let alone thinking about 2024,” she replied.

Lawsuits Against Trump

On Sept. 21, James filed her civil lawsuit against Trump, The Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Trump’s business associates over alleged fraud, claiming that the value of Trump’s assets was inflated.

Back in 2018, James campaigned with the goal of filing a lawsuit against then-president Trump.

“I’m running for attorney general because I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president when our fundamental rights are at stake,” she said at the time.

In the latest move, Trump fired back at James with the lawsuit describing her legal action against him as a “relentless” and public “crusade … with the stated goal of destroying him personally, financially, and politically.”

Meanwhile in 2019, Vance launched a three-year investigation into the Trump Organization, alleging the company had evaded paying taxes.

The organization’s CFO Allen Weisselberg in August pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud.

Weisselberg’s lawyers said that he was punished by the Democrat district attorney’s office because he wouldn’t offer information that would damage Trump.

Jack Phillips and Caden Pearson contributed to this report.