Donald Trump has decided to seek reelection in 2020—and he’s already started making moves, thanks to the Republican National Committee.
After coming under fire for paying a portion of the legal fees for Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in the Russia probe case, the RNC has decided to put its money elsewhere, according to ABC News.
Instead of pouring the organization’s money into legal fees, they have decided to put money toward Trump’s campaign. The RNC has even already started making donations by paying rent to the NYC Trump Tower out of their own campaign funds. The two payments, both dated in January, each totaled out at $37,541.67. Each.
That’s almost $80,000 directed towards his campaign funds, money that he won’t even need for some time.
In a comment to ABC News, RNC Communications Director Ryan Mahoney says, “The RNC has raised historic amounts of money preparing to elect Republicans in 2018 and 2020. All of our efforts and spending go toward winning elections and coordinated expenditures are a standard part of that. We already have hundreds of staff across the country and thousands of highly trained organizers committed to protecting our majorities and keeping the White House.”
But that’s not all. According to filings from the Federal Election Commission, the campaign itself spent over $470,000 on rent at the Trump Tower last year and the RNC has spent more than $427,000 at Trump properties since the 2016 election. (Maybe they could focus on directing some of that money toward other causes? IDK.)
While Trump filed paperwork with the FEC on inauguration day for a possible reelection which allows him to collect donations, his intention to officially seek reelection was only reported on Tuesday, making it, as Fortune noted, the earliest announcement of a reelection campaign in presidential history. Multiple outlets reported that Trump had selected Brad Parscale, who was previously in charge of the Trump campaign’s digital arm—and who notably faved a tweet calling POTUS an idiot—as his campaign manager.