FEC Filings Show Trump’s Committees Steer Donor Money Back to His Properties
Federal Election Commission filings show that Republican donors are still helping to prop up Donald Trump’s private businesses — even while he sits in the Oval Office again.
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A new analysis by HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte finds that in the first half of 2025, the Republican National Committee and the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. spent more than $857,000 at Trump-owned properties, including Mar-a-Lago and his golf clubs. In total, Trump’s hotels and country clubs collected about $1.1 million from Republican candidates and committees so far this year — and roughly 80% of that cash came from entities Trump controls or heavily influences.
Campaign-finance experts say that may be legal under current rules, but it highlights how Trump can turn political donations into private revenue. When committees rent ballrooms, pay catering bills, or host fundraisers at Trump properties, donor money effectively becomes income for the president’s companies.
This year’s numbers are part of a much larger trend. From 2015 through the first half of 2024, political groups spent an estimated $35 million at Trump properties, more than 80% of it from pro-Trump organizations, according to previous analyses of FEC data.
Supporters argue that Trump is simply using venues he owns and that other politicians also do business with companies tied to their families. But watchdogs say the scale is different — and that Trump is once again blurring the line between campaign dollars and personal profit.
For Republican donors, the filings raise a basic question: how much of their money is funding political work, and how much is just flowing back into Trump’s own cash registers?