Donald Trump's Campaign Funneled $8.2 Million to Trump Businesses: Report

Donald Trump's bid for the White House has been good for Donald Trump's businesses: The campaign has paid more than $8.2 million to Trump's business ventures, revealing a blatant link between politics and business at its most extreme by someone seeking the White House.

In an analysis of campaign finance filings to the Federal Election Commission, a Politico report shows that Trump campaign payments to Trump-owned businesses account for about 7 percent of its $119 million in expenditures.

Among the larger expenditures the Trump campaign spent on his businesses include:

• Rent for his campaign offices ($1.3 million)
• Food and facilities for events and meetings ($544,000)
• Payroll for Trump corporate staffers who assist with campaign-related work ($333,000)

Although Trump appears to not be violating laws on this front, candidates typically refrain from sending campaign business their own way either because their businesses aren't structured in a way that would allow them to do so, or out of concern of appearing to be padding their own businesses with campaign donations.

When Trump's last FEC filing in June showed that 20 percent of his expenditures went to Trump businesses, Hillary Clinton tried to play on the distaste it would likely give voters.

In that filing, in May, Trump spent $208,000 on hats, $5,000 on signs and $694,000 on T-shirts, mugs and stickers — all from his own online store. He also sent $400 of business to Trump Ice LLC, which makes bottled waters.

Some observers say that between keeping his expenditures low, spending campaign cash on Trump businesses, promoting Trump hotels and selling his other wares, Trump could make money off the whole 2016 election cycle.

"There’s a good chance that Donald Trump’s the first candidate for president who makes money off the whole endeavor," said Charlie Spies, a Republican election lawyer who was Mitt Romney’s CFO in 2008. "The difference with the Romney campaign — he’s a numbers guy, that he’s very cheap, I think in terms of how money is spent, so we were looking to save as much money as possible."

In 2000, Trump appeared to already know that running for president as a money-making opportunity.

"It's very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it," Trump told Fortune magazine, adding that "there’s no way a good businessman" would lose money on such an opportunity.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons