Politico reported that most of the spending to date – almost $6 million – has gone to TAG Air, the holding company for Trump’s private plane that he uses to fly to campaign events around the country.
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Politico ran the numbers on Trump’s of FEC records through August and found “Trump’s campaign has spent at least $8.2 million at Trump’s own businesses, including to hold events at his hotels, buy food from his restaurants and rent office space for its headquarters in his Manhattan office tower”.
The Secret Service has reimbursed Hillary Clinton’s campaign $2.6 million for travel as well, according to Politico, but she has relied primarily on a private company called Executive Fliteways.
Donald Trump’s businesses are making some serious dough off of his campaign.
According to Politico, the agency always reimburses presidential candidates and other officials for the cost of traveling with the candidates. Trump has spent $54 million of his own money on his campaign, less than half the $119 million the campaign has spent in total. Often, these candidates’ businesses were structured in such a way that it would not have been legal for them to do so, anyway, but Trump’s are apparently structured differently. In 2000, Trump presciently claimed, “I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it”.
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In a statement responding to Politico’s findings, the Trump campaign said the alleged billionaire, whose tax returns have still not been made public, “has largely self-funded his campaign and continues to make significant contributions which far exceed the amounts the campaign is required to pay”.
