Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast
As Donald Trump fights off four criminal indictments and a host of other costly civil cases, his political money machine is once again footing the bill for his lawyers. But in a new filing with the Federal Election Committee this week, one particular line item stuck out: payments to private investigators.
Using private investigators—or, more broadly, the research work they do—is standard fare on a political campaign. Candidates want to dig up dirt on their enemies, and they want to know their own vulnerabilities. But Trump wasn’t looking into himself or his political enemies. In fact, Trump wasn’t doing anything explicitly political.
He was looking into the actions of his own lawyers.