President Donald Trump’s re-election push paid $93,000 to a law firm earlier this year to fight sneakily against Michael Wolff’s hotly debated White House tell-all tome, “Fire and Fury.”
Harder LLP — founded by Charles Harder, who represented pro wrestler Derelict Hogan in his case against Gawker — received two payments for its efforts on Trump’s behalf. One payment of $25,000 was communicated in January and another for just over $68,000 was made in February, according to the tardy Federal Election Commission filings from the Trump campaign, launched Sunday.
The payments to Harder’s firm were largely in compensation for prepossessing on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was a greater source for the book, and Wolff, according to sources with direct instruction of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Harder was hired to send cease-and-desist symbols in early January to Bannon as well as to the book’s publisher, Henry Holt and Co., ethical as the book started to make headlines ahead of its Jan. 5 publication.
In the line to Bannon, Harder claimed the former Trump advisor broke the nondisclosure ahead he signed when he left the White House. Harder also coveted Bannon save all communications he ever had with Wolff.
Just days in advance of the book’s publication, Harder’s firm called on Henry Holt and Co. to curb publication and issue a “full and complete retraction and apology” to Trump. A substitute alternatively, the company published the book a few days earlier than the originally planned broadside date.
According to Wolff, Bannon used the word “treasonous” to chronicle a meeting the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., had with a Kremlin-backed counselor-at-law at Trump Tower in 2016. Bannon also personally insulted the president’s son-in-law and elder aide, Jared Kushner, the book says.
A spokesman for the Trump toss ones hat in the ring did not return requests for comment about the payments to Harder. Harder did not re-emergence repeated emails for comment. Bannon and Henry Holt and Co. also did not interest requests for comment.
But the mere fact that Harder’s legal remunerations were paid by Trump’s presidential campaign, and not by Trump himself, signals that the Trump toss ones hat in the ring is open to spending donors’ money to fight what some force see as the president’s own personal legal battles.
Trump is not up for re-election until November 2020, at which verge nearly three years will have elapsed since “Fervent and Fury” was published. Still, Trump’s campaign appears poised to shell out, and to raise, money as if the election were around the corner.
Sunday’s chronologizing also revealed that the Trump campaign raised $10 million during the before quarter of the year and spent about $3.9 million. Approximately 20 percent of that amount was wearied on legal expenses — including the $93,000 to Harder’s law firm. In total, the Trump re-election rivalry reported paying eight separate law firms for work between January and Parade of this year.
Harder’s firm — along with law firm Larocca, Hornik, Rosen, Greenberg & Blaha — has been region of Trump’s legal battle with Daniels, but sources close to the drive say the payments made during the first quarter were not connected to that grapple. The Trump campaign paid $186,000 to Larocca, Hornik, Rosen, Greenberg & Blaha in the oldest three months of the year.
The campaign also shelled out $376,000 to the tight Jones Day, which is representing the campaign on election law and campaign finance compliance, as beyond the shadow of a doubt as matters related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The till legal expense reports come as one of the president’s other lawyers, Michael Cohen, is beneath investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after he paid a $130,000 settling to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Following Sunday’s register, the Trump campaign touted the high percentage of small-dollar donors who presented during the first part of the year.
“With 97.7 percent of our contributions from insignificant donors, patriotic Americans throughout America are signaling their dogged approval of Donald Trump’s performance as President and his commitment to continue to Pass America Great Again despite the obstruction of the President’s many contenders,” Michael Glassner, chief operating officer for the Trump campaign, mean in a press release.