The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Pro-Trump super PAC spent $1.3 million on legal fees in April, an unusually high amount for a super PAC

America First Action spent more than half of its operating expenses on legal fees, new filings show

May 21, 2020 at 1:38 a.m. EDT
President Trump speaks during a meeting with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) at the White House on May 20. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Pro-Trump super PAC America First Action poured more than half of its operating costs into legal fees last month, spending $1.3 million on legal consulting — an unusually high amount for a super PAC.

The payments were made public Wednesday night in new Federal Election Commission filings, and the reports do not disclose detailed reasons for each legal payment. By comparison, the group paid about $450,000 in legal fees in the first three months of 2020 combined, filings show.

In a high-profile case last fall, the Justice Department investigated donations made to the super PAC by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two associates of Rudolph W. Giuliani who were accused of conspiracy and making false statements to the FEC. Parnas and Fruman have pleaded not guilty.

America First Action has said it follows the law and had reached out to federal investigators, offering to cooperate voluntarily with the investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The super PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.

In October, the Justice Department charged that Parnas and Fruman disguised the source of a $325,000 donation to the super PAC by giving the money under the name of a company that investigators said was used as a front to disguise the funds’ true source. The 2018 donation was made in the name of Global Energy Producers (GEP), a purported liquefied natural gas company that the two men controlled.

Investigators scrutinize Giuliani firm and donations to Trump super PAC as part of broad probe

Federal investigators were exploring a wide range of potential crimes involving the pair’s interactions with the president’s personal lawyer and the super PAC, including wire fraud and failure to register as a foreign agent, The Washington Post reported in November.

Among America First Action’s biggest legal payments last month were to Texas-based trial lawyer Daniel Hagood and MoloLamken, a D.C. law firm handling complex litigation, filings show.

In April, America First Action raised nearly $11.6 million, the vast majority of it coming from a single donor: a $10 million donation by Timothy Mellon, the chairman of Pan Am Systems, a New Hampshire-based transportation company and a longtime GOP donor.

The April donation by Mellon, an investor in Wyoming who has given heavily to Republicans, was one of his first prominent contributions to President Trump’s reelection effort. In the 2020 presidential primaries, Mellon previously gave the maximum donation of $2,800 in support of the White House bid of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). In 2018, Mellon also gave a donation to now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Another $1 million came in April from Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He is married to Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), who has been facing criticism after she sold millions of dollars in stock following a closed-door Senate session about the novel coronavirus.

Sprecher has been a noted Wall Street figure amid the economic turmoil sparked by the pandemic. In late March, he participated in a call with Trump and Vice President Pence that was arranged for some of the most prominent Wall Street leaders, to discuss the impact of the virus on the economy, according to people familiar with the call.

Biden campaign’s selection of Priorities USA as preferred super PAC stokes strife in Democratic Party

On the Democratic side, the super PACs supporting presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden struggled to keep up with their fundraising pace in April, after stay-at-home orders over the coronavirus halted major campaign fundraising efforts for a few weeks.

Priorities USA Action, the main Democratic super PAC backing the former vice president, raised $2.9 million in April — less than the $4 million it raised in March. The biggest contribution to the super PAC in April was a $1.7 million transfer from the group’s nonprofit arm that does not disclose its donors, filings show.

Unite the Country, a super PAC backing Biden, raised about $723,000, compared with the $10 million in March when the group generated a flurry of donations as Biden cleared a path to the nomination. The group said that it has been wary of fundraising while Americans are suffering during the pandemic and that it was cognizant of efforts by the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party to strike a deal in April to allow wealthy donors to give six figures in support of Biden.

“We don’t expect to have a record-breaking fundraising month every single month, particularly when so many are struggling in this pandemic,” Unite the Country spokeswoman Lily Adams said. “We’re proud of the support we’ve received so far in May, which allowed us to go on the air with a recent seven-figure ad buy, and we’re in a strong financial position to have Joe Biden’s back and tell the positive story about his candidacy.”