Trump raised the rent by a factor of five after he started soliciting donations to his campaign, charging himself nearly $170,000 in July for space at the Trump Tower, up from just $35,000 in March, according to a review of FEC filings by the Huffington Post. However, in a statement to The Huffington Post, it said that it had expanded into larger quarters.
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Trump increased the rent his campaign paid to his own building in proportion to the increase in donations that he was receiving. But HuffPo notes that the number of Trump staffers has not drastically increased: “The campaign’s number of paid employees and consultants went from 166 in May, to 139 in June, to 172 in July”.
Trump seemingly jacked up the rent on his Trump Tower space once he wasn’t footing the bill. Well, probably not. The size of Trump’s campaign staff remains tiny compared to that of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and has actually shrunk since March.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s director of rapid response, also told the Associated Press the “expansion is in anticipation of more staff”. Since he began a major contribution pitch this spring, however, the rate has jumped significantly, to $169,758 per month. The news outlet, however, reported that only about a dozen worked in Manhattan last fall.
Trump continues to fly to campaign events on his personal Boeing 757 airliner, even though the aging jet burns some $10,000 in fuel every hour. In July, the campaign doled out $773,000 to reimburse various Trump-owned companies for expenses. For the early part of his campaign, Trump was largely self funding, with three-quarters of the $59 million spent by the campaign reportedly coming from his own pocket. The bulk now comes from outside donors, both small-dollar givers and those writing maximum-limit checks of $2,700.
“Nobody cares when you’re spending your own money, but when you’re spending the donor’s $27, that could cause problems”, the RNC member told HuffPost.
The Trump campaign’s excuse that the campaign was expanding would be plausible if the campaign were hiring more people. Photos and video from those tours show work space with unfinished ceilings, makeshift drywall partitions, and only a few campaign workers.
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“We calculated the rent based on the average rent per square foot in the area”, the statement says. But Trump Tower has rented 9,000 feet of space at $120 per square foot as of December. The rent for that space has been about $212,000 per month.
