Trump’s 2020 Campaign Has Already Spent Nearly $1 Million at Trump Businesses
President Trump’s reelection campaign has already spent nearly $1 million in campaign cash at Trump Organization properties, according to new reports, raising renewed questions about the ethics of a sitting president remaining so deeply invested in his private business.
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There are both ethical and legal concerns raised by a sitting president’s campaign spending money at businesses owned by the candidate, said Adav Noti, the senior director for trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center and former assistant general counsel at the Federal Election Commission.
These are concerns unique to Trump: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton didn’t own the kind of businesses that their campaigns would spend money at. Noti noted that back in the 1970s, when questions of impropriety were raised, Jimmy Carter divested from his peanut farm.
“No other president has had his own businesses that he patronized as a sitting president, not in recent times,” Noti said.