Donald Trump touted the small size of his largely self-financed presidential campaign as a way of saving money during the Republican primaries, but it seems he is now charging his own campaign headquarters far more for rent in Trump Tower than he did then.
The Huffington Post broke the story, citing campaign finance reports which reveal – although the billionaire developer’s Donald J. Trump for President Inc. organization paid Trump Tower Commercial LLC $35,458 in March – on July 10, it paid $169,758, despite having fewer staff and consultants on its payroll.
"If I was a donor, I'd want answers," an anonymous but prominent Republican National Committee member and Trump supporter told HuffPo. "If they don't have any more staff, and they're paying five times more? That's the kind of stuff I'd read and try to make an (attack) ad out of it."
The Republican National Committee agreed to a joint fundraising deal with the Trump campaign in mid-May. At the end of May, the campaign paid $72,800 in rent on the Trump Tower office. By June 9, that number increased to $110,684. In July, Trump's campaign paid $495,000 to the candidate's companies for the cost of his private plane.
"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 added, referring to small donors who now contribute the bulk of Trump’s campaign funds. "Most campaigns run on a much tighter budget."
In June, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported 20 percent of Trump's campaign funds went to Trump-owned businesses, including $423,000 to his Palm Beach resort Mar-A-Lago and $349,000 to his airline, Tag Air.
The rent increase stemmed from an expansion of the campaign space in the building, according to a campaign representative who spoke to Time Magazine.
"We calculated the rent based on the average rent per square foot in the area," the representative said in an email. "The campaign expanded from part of a single floor by adding the entirety of two separate floors."
But the representative didn't specify how much space the headquarters occupied. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has leased two floors of a Brooklyn office building totaling 80,000 square feet since she began her campaign, paying roughly $212,000 a month, although she has a campaign staff far outnumbering Trump's, with over 700 employees.
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