Questions raised about company 'fronting' $8M in Trump legal fees
By using a cut-out company, Donald Trump has been disguising where $8 million in legal fees are being spent — and that has legal experts suggesting the former president is flouting federal laws at the same time that he's facing multiple criminal trials, according to a report.
The company in question, a compliance firm called Red Curve Solutions, has handled millions funneled from various Trump-aligned committees, even though it is not known for legal services.
With Trump's FEC filings stating the money handed over to the company has been designated as "reimbursements," it would appear Red Curve is "fronting" money for the former president, writes the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger.
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The vagueness as to who specifically is ending up with money over the past 15 months is raising eyebrows, Sollenberger wrote.
"The payment descriptions suggest that since December 2022, when the arrangement seemed to begin, Red Curve has been fronting legal costs out of its corporate account, with Trump’s committees repaying the company later. According to campaign finance experts, this setup appears to flout federal rules requiring the disclosure of vendors, with Red Curve’s advance payments also raising the prospect of corporate in-kind contributions," he wrote.
As campaign finance expert Brendan Fischer explained, this appears to be a violation of federal law.
"This appears illegal for two reasons. When a campaign makes a reimbursement, it must report the payment to the person being reimbursed, and also itemize the underlying vendor,” Fischer stated while pointing out the lack of itemization details. "The second is that these transactions may have resulted in Red Curve making illegal corporate contributions to Trump’s committees.”
Narrowing down where Trump is possibly in violation of the law, Fischer added, "Red Curve is a corporation, so cannot lawfully make an advance to Trump’s hard money committees, even if later reimbursed."
The Beast's Sollenberger added, "Campaign finance experts agreed that the pattern suggests these Trump committees, for some unknown reason, have been sharing legal costs. But the payment reports don’t identify the entity or entities that Red Curve initially paid to perform the legal work on Trump’s behalf. And that, the experts said, could pose a problem — because it hides the true vendor and recipient of the funds."
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