Trump's PAC is paying nearly $40,000 a month for a Trump Tower space that its staffers are hardly using, report says

A taxi passes by Trump Tower, the headquarters of the Trump Organization, in New York City on Wednesday, July 14, 2021
AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

Trump's political operation is helping pay the bills at Trump Tower, the Washington Post reports.
Trump's PAC is paying nearly $40,000 a month for a seldom-used office space in the tower.
"We are paying market rate for leased office space," Trump's chief political spokeswoman told the Post.
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Former President Donald Trump's political action committee is helping plug some financial holes at Trump Tower by paying nearly $40,000 a month for office space in the iconic building, the Washington Post reports.

Campaign finance filings reviewed by the Post show that the Save America PAC is paying $37,541.67 a month, to be exact, for Trump Tower office space that staffers barely ever use on the tower's 15th floor, a space that was once home to Trump campaign offices.

Most of Trump's PAC's staffers either work remotely or from Trump's Bedminister, New Jersey golf club or Mar-a-Lago in Florida, depending on the time of year, and Trump himself works out of the Trump Organization offices and not the 15th-floor office space when he's in town, the Post said.

Trump Tower, the Trump Organization's flagship property situated on Fifth Avenue in New York City, has encountered the same financial struggles of many other commercial real estate landlords during the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by both pandemic restrictions and declining tourism and foot traffic in the area, especially for luxury shopping.

Trump Tower, the Post reported according to data from Trepp, now has an occupancy rate of 75%, the lowest level since 2013.

Many of the building's retail tenants including clothing company Marcraft and Marc Fisher Footwear have stopped paying their rent or gone out of business altogether, the Post found from legal filings and business records - but not Trump's PAC, which brought in $62 million in the first six months of 2021 alone.

Trump, who has long rankled ethics experts with the coziness of the Trump Organization's business and his political operation particularly when he served as president, formed his Save America PAC shortly after leaving office.

Its structure as a leadership PAC gives the former president a large amount of leeway to raise and spend money for all his political wants well within the bounds of campaign finance law, including in ways that also happen to help some of the Trump Organization's struggling properties.

"We are paying market rate for leased office space used to help President Trump build a financial juggernaut to help elect America First conservatives and flip both the House and Senate to the Republicans in the midterm elections," Trump's chief political spokeswoman Liz Harrington told the Post about the office space.

In addition to the office space, the Post reported that the Save America PAC also shelled out $3,000 a month to rent a kiosk in the Trump Tower lobby for a period of time, until May of 2021, when the lobby space was closed to the public.

Harrington told the Post that the PAC kept paying for the kiosk because it still houses a large amount of Trump campaign merchandise with the intention of put it back into use when the building's lobby reopened.

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