By Pamela Brown, Jeremy Herb and Shoshana Dubnow | CNN
Washington — Melania Trump has barely been seen on the campaign trail this 12 months. During one in all her few appearances at a political event, she received a six-figure paycheck – a highly unusual move for the wife of a candidate.
The former first lady spoke at two Log Cabin Republicans political fundraisers this 12 months and received $237,500 for an event in April, in keeping with former President Donald Trump's most up-to-date disclosure statement. The payment was listed as a “speaking engagement.”
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Trump's most up-to-date disclosure form said Melania Trump was paid for the April fundraiser by the Log Cabin Republicans. But who actually wrote the check is a mystery: Log Cabin Republicans chairman Charles Moran told CNN earlier this month that the group didn’t raise the cash for Melania's speech, and the disclosure form didn’t provide any further information concerning the source of the payment.
Before the opposite fundraiser in July for the conservative LGBTQ group, an individual accustomed to the campaign said at the very least one request was made to a donor for the same payment. It is unclear whether Melania Trump was ultimately paid. The campaign has not released financial disclosures for that period. The source told CNN that Ric Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and a Trump ally, was the one who made the request on Melania Trump's behalf. Sources say Grenell has also helped the previous first lady with other business ventures.
Campaign finance and government ethics experts say that a payment to a presidential candidate's spouse to attend political fundraising events through the campaign is unusual and ethically questionable and may at the very least be properly noted on disclosure forms.
“It seems pretty self-serving. In my own general observation, I'm not used to seeing this kind of thing,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethicist at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.
If the organization didn’t, in truth, make the payment to Melania Trump, the previous president's financial disclosure statement may violate ethics rules since it must have listed the sponsor who paid Melania Trump, not only the situation where she spoke, Canter said.
“You could state that the payment was for a speaking appearance by the Log Cabin Republicans, but you also have to state who the source of the payment was, otherwise you can't assess the conflicts of interest and it wouldn't be compliant,” she said. “It should have been properly reported so that the source of income for the fee is listed.”
Sources supporting Melania Trump, who attended the Log Cabin Republican events and was unaware that she was paid for at the very least one in all them, defended her, saying it was her right to come to a decision how she spent her time and to be paid for it. One person near Melania Trump said she had decided that “my best and highest use is where I am,” adding that “she is a priceless, timeless asset” to Donald Trump.
A spokesman for Melania Trump declined to comment on CNN's questions.
Records show Melania Trump also received $250,000 for a Log Cabin Republicans event in December 2022, one in all three payments of $250,000 or more she received that month for speeches, shortly after the previous president announced his candidacy for reelection, in keeping with Donald Trump's financial disclosure form from last 12 months. One of the events was in Florida, the opposite was for a California group, Fix California, founded by Grenell. Grenell didn’t reply to multiple requests for comment.
The former First Lady was also $155,000 paid by a Trump-aligned Super PAC – called “Make America Great Again, Again” – for a speech she gave in Palm Beach, Florida, in December 2021, before Trump was a candidate.
She has performed at Log Cabin Republican events prior to now – in 2021 she was also the Guest of honour on the group's annual Spirit of Lincoln Gala.
The fundraising appearances also underline how Melania Trumpfrugal within the election campaign this 12 months. In addition to the 2 appearances at Log Cabin Republican, she and her husband performed at aFundraiser by billionaire and investor John Paulson in Palm Beach and she or he made a temporary appearance on the Republican National Convention, but didn’t give a speech there as she did in 2016. There is not any indication that she was paid for her appearance at Paulson's fundraiser.
“She was so disconnected and so absent from this campaign that I could hear her saying, 'If I put in my time, I'm going to get paid,'” said Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary under Trump and top adviser to Melania Trump who has develop into a critic of the previous president. “Even when we were in the White House, she was always so worried about people making money off her because she felt it was money she should be making.”
Grisham said that in her stay on the White House in 2018, Melania Trump instructed her staff to instruct a present shop near the White House to stop selling Melania Trump memorabilia, comparable to bobbleheads, without permission.
“She was outraged. She didn't like that they were making money off her,” Grisham said.
Donald Trump's financial disclosures also show that the previous first lady earned greater than $330,000 last 12 months for a licensing deal to sell digital trading cards (NFTs). She sells jewelry and other collectibles on her website.
In addition, the previous First Lady will publish her memoirs next month and embark on a promotional tour separate from the campaign. In a Series of short videos While promoting her book, On X, she made rare comments concerning the attempted assassination of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, the 2020 election results and her past as a nude model.
Melania Trump is just not the one member of the Trump family to receives a commission within the political highlight. Kimberly Guilfoyle received a lecture fee of 60,000 US dollars for introducing her fiancé, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., on the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, before the rebellion on the U.S. Capitol. Her speech lasted lower than three minutes.
Speaking and appearance fees for events outside of political fundraising campaigns for former government officials aren’t unusual.
Former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton collected greater than $153 million for paid speechesfrom 2001 until the previous Secretary of State launched her 2016 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama reportedly earned $400,000 from a single speech at a Wall Street healthcare conference in 2017. Attract criticism by members of his own party on the time. And within the two years after he left the vice presidency and before he began his presidential campaign, Joe and Jill Biden made a total of 15.6 million US dollarsmainly through book contracts and speaking engagements.
But representatives of Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Bill Clinton said they’d not received any money for fundraising appearances during a political campaign.
The president's son, Hunter Biden, got here under scrutiny for selling $85,000 price of artwork each at a Manhattan art gallery last springwhile his father was running for re-election.
By all accounts, the Log Cabin Republicans' fundraising efforts have been successful this 12 months, with Grenell posting on X in July that the previous first lady “opened her New York penthouse tonight to raise money for the group.”
“It's the first campaign rally ever held at the Trump residence,” he wrote. “And we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to win 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump.”
At the April event at Mar-a-Lago where Melania Trump spoke, the organization launched its “Road to Victory” program to achieve voters in swing states, in keeping with Politico.
CNN's Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
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