We have our verdict, Savannah.

Here we go.

Count one.

Guilty.

Donald Trump was found guilty of criminal charges for his role in covering up payments to influence the 2016 election.

The verdict has added to a long list of legal battles that are costing Trump significant time and money in the presidential race.

Trump's campaign, they're facing a massive cash crunch and some people are worried, well they should be, that he's spending way too much of his political money on legal bill?

Yeah.

There are serious question marks for the Trump team in how they're going to be able to even compete financially.

Meanwhile, President Biden has a wide lead in campaign funding and none of the same legal handicaps.

We are not spending money on legal bills.

The money that we are, we are raising, we are going straight to talking to voters.

But will the financial divide actually matter in the race?

Early voter polls show a slight negative effect for Trump after the conviction, but are relatively unchanged.

And in just 24 hours after the conviction, Trump's campaign reported raising a record $52.8 million in donations.

But as the election approaches, Trump's legal battles aren't going away.

And now some watchdog groups say that Trump's tactics to fund his legal costs may also violate campaign finance laws.

The use of leadership packs, you know, the leadership packs have to pay for personal expenses.

That's a pretty clear cut abuse and it's a common sense law.

So what are the fundraising tactics Trump is using to keep his political operation running against all odds?

And how will his legal challenges impact his shot at the White House?

Donald Trump entered the 2024 race at a massive financial deficit to Biden.

When he became the presumptive Republican nominee in March, FEC filings showed that Trump's campaign had $33 million in cash on hand.

That's compared to Biden's $71 million.

This raised questions about his ability to remain competitive in the race, especially in key battleground states.

Money can help towards actually putting folks on the ground in these states.

And you can go and have a rally in those places, but those rallies cost $400,000.

I mean, this is where don't expect to see Donald Trump to be parading around the country because those events cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on.

They're in a predicament now, whether they'd like to admit it or not.

What money Trump managed to raise was quickly being drained by lawsuits and investigations.

Here's a look at the cases.

There are six in total, some of which relate to Trump's presidency and some related to personal matters like his New York businesses.

There are two civil lawsuits that have already gone to trial.

Trump was found liable in both and ordered by the court to pay over $500 million in penalties, which he's currently appealing.

Then there's four criminal cases, one of which has gone to trial and resulted in a guilty verdict.

Between all six cases, Trump has spent more than $100 million in legal fees.

That's around $90,000 per day since he left the White House.

And almost none of it has been paid for by Trump himself.

Donald Trump, who's known to kind of delay making payments for certain things, has been turning to his own donors to help pay for his legal bills.

We really haven't seen a candidate for president on trial, trying to raise money to run for president while also inadvertently, if not directly, raising money to pay off his legal bills.

It's just unheard of in modern political history.

To do this, Trump is taking advantage of a little-known loophole in campaign finance law.

Campaign finance law generally prohibits the use of campaign funds for any personal use, right?

It's illegal for someone to collect money from donors, you know, under the premise that they're going to use it to run for office and then use that money to pay things they would otherwise have had to pay for anyways.

But because the FEC has exempted leadership packs from that general prohibition, that's what we see happening.

We see millions of dollars in donors' money being spent on Trump's personal legal matters.

A leadership pack is a type of political action committee that's separate from a campaign fund and isn't subject to the same restrictions by the Federal Election Commission.

Filings show Trump has used a web of these groups to funnel money to a pack called Save America, which is paying most of his legal fees.

The practice isn't totally unheard of.

President Biden recently used donations from the DNC to pay lawyers in a classified documents case.

Senator Bob Menendez, who is currently running for re-election and facing investigation, has also used campaign funds to pay his lawyers.

I tend to view a political campaign as something like a small business.

So it's perfectly acceptable to use campaign funds to pay for legal that has a connection, a clear nexus, with the operations of the campaign.

The real problem, though, is that Trump appears to be using the leadership pack money to pay for all kinds of legal services, both those that seem to be related to his campaigns or his time as president,

and other matters that actually have no real connection to him running for or serving in office.

The Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint to the FEC about Trump's use of donor money to pay legal bills and has not received a response.

But do his donors even care?

According to recent campaign filings, it doesn't look like it.

Trump has surprised many by activating a small but wealthy group of donors who have helped counter the financial drain of his legal bills.

After Nikki Haley dropped out in the primary against Donald Trump, you know, things clearly started to shift.

You're talking about people like, you know, John Paulson, Robert Mercer, Lyndon McMahon.

There are a variety of people who have come off that sideline to start helping Donald Trump.

But in other cases, there were some donors who were on the fence who really weren't fans of him but are moving to help him anyway because they just don't like Joe Biden and they feel like Trump's their only option.

These holdouts include billionaires Nelson Peltz, Harold Hamm, and Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, who have all openly criticized Trump in the wake of Jan 6.

But in recent weeks, they've shown their support for him in the 2024 race.

The fresh wave of funding is a part of a new strategy by the Trump campaign to pursue wealthier supporters as court appearances eat away at Trump's ability to hold campaign rallies and attract small-dollar donors.

It seems to be working. In April, Trump's team reported out-raising Biden for the first time in the race, bringing in 76 million compared to Biden's 51 million that month.

And these big name donors don't seem to care about Trump's guilty verdict.

I think he's defying the skeptics.

I think he's defying gravity from a historical perspective.

I don't think anybody can be surprised that despite his legal issues, that rich people who have criticized him openly or privately are back supporting him again anyway.

And many voters might feel the same way.

While some polls show swing voters were less likely to vote for Trump after the guilty verdict, experts say it likely doesn't affect his base support, which is still strong.

But the flow through of what it means for the election and then the markets by extension, I don't think this is a needle mover.

It doesn't fundamentally change the direction of the election.

Ultimately, I think it comes down for voters what it means for them and what policies mean for them.

And after the trial, Trump's campaign reported raking in almost 53 million dollars in online donations in just 24 hours.

But what we're dealing with here is a situation that I've certainly never seen in my 55 years in American politics,

which is a level of devotion to one man, regardless of the facts of that man's life, unlike anything I have ever seen.

And going forward, experts say the legal controversy might actually be working in his favor.

He's not going to be able to afford pushing his campaign forward just through that alone.

He doesn't have to even pay for an ad because every single day that he's in court acts as a free ad for him.

If he didn't do a single campaign rally for the next few months, he's still getting the same amount of attention.

The exact fallout of Trump's guilty verdict won't be fully known until his sentencing in July.

His team is expected to appeal, which will continue to cost him thousands of dollars each week.

He faces an additional three criminal cases that are awaiting trial dates.

But in the meantime, experts say Trump is well out of danger of dropping out of the presidential race.

It's going to be a really tough slog for Donald Trump to do every bit of what you have to do as a candidate for president while facing scrutiny by legal officials.

He has too much support in this country to drop out, both from a financial perspective and from a voting perspective.

The polls effectively have Donald Trump and Joe Biden tied.

If you're Trump, you just need enough cash to get you through the quarter by quarter and to keep the campaign on the right track.

And you will be able to survive and get your message out there.