New campaign finance records show that Donald Trump’s political action committee paid the law firm representing the former president’s longtime adviser, Boris Epshteyn, ahead of his pending criminal trial in Arizona.
The PAC leadership, Save America, did two payments of $40,000 and $10,000 on May 14 to Phoenix-based law firm Tully Bailey LLP. Named partner Michael Baileywho was the U.S. attorney for Arizona from 2019 to 2021, has represented Epshteyn in the Arizona case since at least May 9, according to court records.
Epshteyn was among those indicted in April on state charges that he helped orchestrate the alleged fake election scheme in Arizona to send Trump voters to the U.S. Capitol to be counted instead of Joe Biden voters after the 2020 election. innocent.
Bailey, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, represented Epshteyn in his indictment on June 18which was postponed, with permission of the court and with consent of prosecutors, due to Bailey’s own obligations to another out-of-state client.
It is unclear whether the payment to the company was directly tied to Epshteyn’s representation, but the payments were the PAC’s first disbursements to her.
As of last year, none of the other 30 co-defendants with ties to Trump in Arizona or a related scheme in Georgia appear to have received direct financial support from Save America for their legal expenses.
Epshteyn remains a frequent presence on the Trump campaign. He led the coordination of several legal teams that advised Trump regarding his New York bribery trial and three other pending criminal cases, as well as the investigation by the now-defunct House January 6 committee.
Save America, created by Trump in November 2020, and Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign have spent at least $90.6 million covering legal expenses primarily on his behalf. Federal Election Commission filings dating back to 2021 show that nearly $83 million of that amount is attributable to Save America.
The PAC made payments for “legal advice” to law firms representing Trump’s co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, in the Mar-a-Lago, Florida documents case. The entity’s records, however, do not reflect any disbursements to those companies since late last year, nor are any Trump-affiliated political entities believed to have paid lawyers representing defendants other than Trump and Epshteyn in Arizona or Georgia. Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference case against Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants is largely on hold pending an appeal regarding her continued involvement in the matter.
Asked whether Save America covered the legal expenses of any other co-defendants in Georgia or Arizona, the organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, also did not respond.
In December 2022, Save America made a payment of nearly $900,000 to McGuireWoods LLP, which represented former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in both the January 6 Congressional investigation and other ongoing matters .
In 2021 and 2022, as the January 6 committee sent subpoenas to a network of people close to Trump during the weeks surrounding the attack on the Capitol, Save America paid about $175,000 to the law firm Stanley Woodward. Woodward represented several of Trump’s personal aides during the inquiry, including Nauta, Will Russell and Dan Scavino. He also represented Nauta in the Mar-a-Lago documents case from the investigative phase.
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