According to financial revelations, Mr. Trump’s “Save America” political action committee paid about $200,000 to law firms in May alone. That includes $75,000 to JPRowley Law, who represents Cleta Mitchell, a pro-Trump attorney who has sued to try and block the commission’s subpoena, and $50,000 to Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, who is Stephen K. Bannon, a close ally of the former president who refused to meet the panel and has been charged with criminal contempt. The managing partner at the firm representing Mr Bannon declined to comment.
It was not immediately clear whether those payments were to cover legal costs related to the Jan. 6 investigation, but people familiar with the matter said the PAC paid for the representation of several former officials and aides in the investigation. , including some high-profile ones like Stephen Miller, who served as Mr. Trump’s senior adviser. Mr. Trump’s PAC has paid some of Mr. Miller’s legal bills.
A spokesman for Mr Trump also declined to comment.
More than a dozen witnesses before the Jan. 6 commission also received free legal advice and attorney fees paid for by the American Conservative Union’s “First Amendment Fund,” which consults with Mr. Trump’s team about whose fees should be covered from his “seven-figure” funds, according to Matt Schlapp, the organization’s president.
“We have pro bono lawyers talking to the lawyers for the people who want help,” Mr Schlapp said in an interview on Thursday. “Almost everyone has received the payment.”
He said Matt Whitaker, a former acting attorney general who sits on the board of one of Mr Trump’s political organizations, has worked with the legal group and has “spent many late nights advising younger staffers and giving lots of advice. †
Mr Trump has previously been under scrutiny for appearing to interfere with investigations into his conduct. In 2017, an attorney for Mr. Trump in the investigation into his campaign’s conspiracy with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign dangled the prospect of pardoning two under investigation individuals, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort.
