Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro spilled on Wednesday that the former president paid about $300,000 of his legal fees.
In a fiery interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, the former White House aide said Trump has “certainly helped” him take care of the bills after he was convicted on contempt of Congress charges for his refusal to cooperate with a House select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
“About $300,000, my legal fees are well in excess of six” hundred thousand dollars, Navarro told the MSNBC host.
Navarro said he plans to appeal his conviction and referred to it as “outrageous,” adding that it will be “a million-dollar case.”
“And Ari, part of the problem here is this lawfare, this notion of if you can’t put me in prison, you can at least bankrupt me. I’m not a wealthy guy. I wasn’t one of the wealthy guys in the Trump administration,” said Navarro, who also asked for donations to his legal defense fund on the air.
“All I ever did was create jobs, save lives and settle labor strikes,” he continued. “And I thought I did the honorable productive service to this country and now I’m stuck with a lot of legal bills.”
Trump’s political action committee reportedly spent over $40 million on legal fees, including on attorneys for former aides, in the first half of 2023.
The 2024 GOP front-runner “pushed back” at opening his wallet for his former attorney Rudy Giuliani before eventually hosting a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for Giuliani at his Bedminster golf club, some sources told CNN.
Other co-defendants in Trump’s Georgia election case, meanwhile, have had to come up with money to pay for their legal fees, sources told CBS News earlier this month. Trump and multiple others were indicted for charges related to their efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Ex-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, a co-defendant in the Georgia election case, publicly went after the former president for falling short of “funding any of us who are indicted.”
“Would this change if he becomes the nominee? Why then, not now? I totally agree this has become a bigger principle than just one man. So why isn’t MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Melber asked Navarro whether he requested help from Trump for paying his legal fees. He replied, “Sure, certainly.”
“Look, he’s been a rock on this, OK?” he told Melber.
H/T: Mediaite