Trump-linked Super PAC paid Melania Trump $155,000 in 2021

Ms Trump appears to have been paid to appear at a December 2021 fundraiser hosted by the now-defunct Make America Great Again, Again super PAC

Former president Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure form shows that a super PAC linked to him made a $155,000 payment to his wife, Melania Trump, in December 2021.

The disclosure form listed the 2 December 2021 payment to Ms Trump as compensation for a speaking engagement from the Make America Great Again, Again political action committee, which was the main super PAC connected to his political operation until last year.

The now-defunct political committee did not specifically disclose the payments to Ms Trump, but instead disguised them as a pair of payments to Ms Trump’s representatives at Designer’s Management Agency. One such payment was for $125,000, while the other was for $30,000, with the PAC reporting them as being disbursed on 2 and 3 December 2021.

According to the Federal Election Commission filing, the committee categorised the two payments as having been made for “event planning and consulting”.

The payments to the former First Lady, who has not thus far been active in her husband’s campaign for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, were first reported by The New York Times on Thursday.

The Times said neither Mr Trump’s campaign nor the former chairman of the PAC — ex-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi — responded to requests for comment.

According to the Times report, the payment to Ms Trump appeared to compensate her for appearing at a fundraiser the committee hosted at Mar-a-Lago, the 1920s-era mansion turned social club where the Trumps maintain their primary residence.

Political groups and campaigns aligned with the twice-impeached ex-president frequently pay him to hold events at the club. The committee that paid his wife also paid more than $350,000 to hold events at Mar-a-Lago in 2021 and 2022.

The Trump financial disclosure also showed that the ex-First Lady took in $250,000 from the conservative LGBT+ group known as the Log Cabin Republicans in December 2022, with another $250,000 coming that same month from a group run by ex-Trump administration official Richard Grenell, Fix California.