Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley warned that former President Donald Trump has used the Republican National Committee (RNC) to pay for his legal bills and will continue to do so if he is re-elected.
“My biggest issue is, you know, I don’t want the RNC to become his legal defense fund,” Haley told CNN’s Caitlan Collins on Friday evening. “I don’t want the RNC to become his personal lawsuit piggy bank.”
Haley’s comments came just hours after a New York judge ordered President Trump to pay more than $355 million for conspiring to alter his net worth to collect tax and insurance benefits. Ta. Weeks earlier, another New York judge ordered columnist E. Jean Carroll to pay $83.3 million in defamation charges after Trump denied sexual assault.
Trump’s fundraising committee spent nearly $30 million in legal fees in the second half of 2023, according to federal election filings released last month, an amount that Trump has spent juggling multiple costly legal battles. This reflects how heavy the financial burden is for re-election.
Haley, Trump’s only remaining challenger in the Republican primary, claimed that Trump is trying to “take control” of the RNC so that he “doesn’t have to continue paying his own legal bills.”
The former South Carolina governor went on to argue that if the RNC is focused on funding Trump’s legal costs, it won’t be funneling money to help Republicans win House and Senate races. She added, “The RNC is now effectively bankrupt anyway.”
Haley said she was concerned about President Trump’s involvement in selecting the committee’s leadership members.
“He’s trying to control the RNC after trying to make me the candidate and trying to keep me out of the race,” she said. Highlighted by Mediaite. “It’s all so he can have a weapon to pay his legal fees.”
“That’s a fear that every Republican should have, because if he continues down that path, we won’t win anything,” Haley said.
Trump and Haley will face off next Saturday in the South Carolina primary on February 24th.
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