Robert Bigelow Gives Trump $1M for Legal Fees

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Facts

  • In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Robert Bigelow, the owner of Budget Suites of America, said that he had donated $1M toward Donald Trump's legal fees amid the multiple civil and criminal cases against the former US president and would be donating another $20M to a Trump super PAC.1
  • Bigelow, who originally supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before he stepped out of the GOP race, said his reason for helping Trump is because he's 'sympathetic,' also noting that Trump's team 'didn't solicit anything' from him. This comes as Trump was recently ordered to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83M as a result of her defamation case against him.1
  • The hotel magnate also cited the current conflicts in the Middle East as his reason for helping Trump, stating that he thinks Trump's experience on the issue during his first term as president will help him again if re-elected.1
  • Among the other cases against Trump is New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit claiming he lied to banks about his net worth, for which she's seeking $370M in penalties. The news of Bigelow's donation to Trump's Save America PAC comes on the same day the New York Times reported that such pro-Trump groups spent $50M on legal fees last year.1
  • According to The Times — which cited two anonymous sources familiar with the matter — Trump has requested a refund of $60M from the super PAC MAGA Inc. following legal expenditures to fund his re-election campaign. The former president has reportedly also directed 10% of every donation to Save America PAC toward attorney's fees, transferring a total of $5.85M during the first half of 2023.2
  • Bigelow, who had dinner with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday night, is also trying to help defend Trump in his four criminal investigations related to alleged election fraud.3

Sources: 1Reuters.com, 2New York Times and 3Devdiscourse.

Narratives

  • Anti-Trump narrative, as provided by Salon. In classic Trump fashion, the former president-turned-criminal defendant is using other people's money to pay for his own mess. Trump is drowning in legal bills and faces potentially sky-high penalties from other ongoing cases. He already had to scrape $50M in donations to pay legal fees last year, and that number will only increase as prosecutors continue to beat him in court.
  • Pro-Trump narrative, as provided by American Greatness. Unlike fraudulent neoconservatives such as Nikki Haley, whose number one donor is a Democrat, Trump is receiving financial help to fight the political prosecutions being waged against him. Bigelow's donations aren't bailing out Trump but rather attempting to prevent the leading GOP candidate and his supporters from losing this election to Haley or Biden — who are both merely two sides of the same coin.

Predictions