Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he campaigns at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. August 12, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
As former President Donald Trump and his army of lawyers prepare for his formal surrender on Thursday, a harsh new reality is emerging for the co-defendants charged alongside him in Georgia: Their legal bills are about to skyrocket, and it appears no help is on the way from Trump.
“I was reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted,” attorney and co-defendant Jenna Ellis said Friday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Ellis is one of 19 people who were charged Aug. 14 in a sprawling indictment by a grand jury in Fulton County after an investigation by District Attorney Fani Willis. The defendants are accused of participating in a criminal effort to interfere in the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election on behalf of then-candidate Trump.
Trump has a history of paying for at least some of his allies’ legal counsel. His entire political network, including his joint fundraising committees, spent over $70 million combined from the start of 2020 through the end of 2022 on legal fees, according to a report by OpenSecrets.
People familiar with the big bills in the Georgia case told CNBC that many caught up in the case are not expecting any help from the Trump political network. Another person said he didn’t want any help from team Trump. Those who declined to be named in this story did so to speak freely about private conversations.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
A new legal defense fund called the Patriot Legal Defense Fund, created in July by two Trump confidants, is supposed to raise money to help Trump’s aides and employees with their legal bills, according to a business record reviewed by CNBC. As of Tuesday, there were no public nonprofit records showing there has been any fundraising, let alone doling out…
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