Combined with the Republican National Committee, Donald Trump's campaign paid a total of $5.5 million in legal bills during 2017 amid probes into Russia’s role in the 2016 election. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Trump, RNC legal bills top $5M in 2017

President Donald Trump’s campaign spent more than $1 million on legal fees during the final three months of 2017, according to a new filing late Wednesday with the FEC.

Combined with the Republican National Committee, Trump's campaign paid a total of $5.5 million in legal bills during 2017 amid probes into Russia’s role in the 2016 election. The payments were made to law firms, as well as the company owned by the president’s family.


The Trump campaign and the RNC have previously acknowledged they are helping pay legal bills for Trump family members who are under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees probing whether the Trump campaign played any role in Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election. The new disclosures, however, do not delineate which legal expenses were related to the Russia investigation and which were not.

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Spending on legal services is allowed under federal law so long as the expenses were incurred from parts of the investigation related to the Trump campaign. The campaign paid Jones Day, which represented Trump during the campaign, $832,765. The campaign also paid $28,530 to The Trump Corporation and $214,467 to McDermott Will & Emery, which is representing Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen in the Russia probe.

Trump's fourth-quarter spending on legal fees was comparable to the $1.1 million the campaign spent in the previous three-month period.

The payments are marked as “legal consulting” on the new disclosure filed Wednesday. Such payments could also go towards paying for other lawsuits or settlements incurred by the campaign that are not related to the Russia probe. An RNC official said Wednesday that the "overwhelming majority of the RNC’s legal expenses have gone to matters unrelated to the Russia probe."

The Trump campaign disclosed spending a total of $2.8 million during the last quarter of the year. The Trump campaign organization — which includes the Trump campaign and two joint fundraising committees — raised $12.2 million during that time, slightly more than during the previous three-month span.

Trump's fourth-quarter haul left his campaign with $22 million in the bank as of December 31, 2017.

The campaign's largest expenditure in the fourth quarter was $1.2 million for online advertising and marketing, paid to a firm affiliated with Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital guru during the 2016 campaign.

Trump’s campaign operation benefited from several big checks cut by wealthy backers during the last three months of the year: A joint fundraising committee between Trump and the Republican National Committee, for example, received $344,400 from Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman; $100,000 from former U.S. Ambassador to Austria Ronald Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder fortune; and $100,000 form Hess Corporation CEO John Hess.