
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Routes Money To Donald Trump Via Gubernatorial Campaign

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has returned to Mar-a-Lago in recent months, this time as former President Donald Trump’s customer rather than his spokesperson.
AFP via Getty Images
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F
ormer White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running for governor of Arkansas, and Donald Trump is benefitting.
In mid-March, Sanders hosted a campaign event at Mar-a-Lago. State filings released for the first three months of 2021 show that her campaign paid the Palm Beach, FL club, which Trump owns outright, $10,700 on March 12 for “event catering.”
The $10,700 investment was more than half of what the Sanders campaign spent on event catering for the entire quarter.
In addition to the food, Sanders received a surprise visit from the former president, an appearance she touted on Twitter.
Less than a month later, the Sanders campaign returned to Mar-a-Lago to hold another fundraiser. Trump swung by that one, too. The campaign has not yet disclosed how much it spent on the second event.
Neither the Trump Organization nor the Sanders campaign responded to multiple requests for comment.
I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the
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I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News. I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.