Trump nearly quintupled the rent for his Trump Tower campaign HQ when he started taking donors' money

Trump Tower.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Donald Trump almost quintupled the rent of his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower as soon as he was no longer self-funding his campaign, The Huffington Post reports. Federal Election Commission filings indicate that in March, the Trump campaign paid a rent of $35,458, but by July, when Trump was raising money from donors, he had jacked the rent up to $169,758.

Trump actually had fewer staff working for him from March to July, dropping from 197 paid employees to 172. "If I was a donor, I'd want answers. If they don't have any more staff, and they're paying five times more? That's the kind of stuff I'd read and try to make an [attack] ad out of it," a Trump-supporting Republican National Committee member told The Huffington Post under the condition of anonymity.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.