Melania Trump was paid for a rare appearance at a political event. It’s unclear who wrote the unusual six-figure check

Washington
CNN
—

Melania Trump has barely been seen on the campaign trail this year. One of the few times she did appear at a political event, she received a six-figure check, a highly unusual gesture for the wife of a candidate.

The former first lady spoke at two political fundraisers for Log Cabin Republicans this year, and she was paid $237,500 for an event in April, according to former President Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure form. The payment was listed as a “speaker.”

Trump’s latest disclosure form indicated that Melania Trump was paid by the Log Cabin Republicans for the April fundraiser. But it’s unclear who wrote the check: Charles Moran, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN earlier this month that the group didn’t provide the money for her to speak, and the disclosure form didn’t provide more information about the source of the payment.

Ahead of another fundraiser scheduled for July for the conservative LGBTQ group, a person familiar with the matter said at least one request was made to a donor for a similar payment. It’s unclear whether Melania Trump was ultimately paid. The campaign has not released financial disclosures for that period. The source told CNN that Ric Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany and a Trump ally, was the one who made the request on Melania Trump’s behalf. Sources said Grenell has also helped the former first lady with other business ventures.

Campaign finance and government ethics experts say a payment to a presidential candidate’s spouse to participate in political fundraising during an election is unusual, ethically questionable and should, at the very least, be properly noted on disclosure forms.

“It seems like a selfish move. From my own observations, I’m not used to seeing that,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

If the organization did not actually make the payment to Melania Trump, the former president’s financial disclosure form could violate ethics rules because it should have listed the sponsor who paid Melania Trump and not just where she spoke, Canter said.

“You could state that the payment was for a speaking engagement for the Log Cabin Republicans, but you also have to state the source of the payment, otherwise you can’t assess conflicts of interest and it wouldn’t be in compliance with the rules,” she said. “It should have been properly declared so that the source of income was mentioned for the honorarium.”

Sources close to Melania Trump who attended the Log Cabin Republican events and were unaware she was being paid for at least one of them defended her, saying she has the right to decide how to spend her time and to be paid for her time. One person close to Melania Trump said she has decided that “my greatest and greatest utility is where I am,” adding that she “is an invaluable and timeless asset” to Donald Trump.

A spokesperson for Melania Trump declined to comment in response to questions from CNN.

The documents show that Melania Trump also received $250,000 for an event hosted by Log Cabin Republican in December 2022, one of three payments of $250,000 or more she received for speaking engagements that month, just after the former president announced he was running for reelection, according to Trump’s financial disclosure form from the previous year. One of the events was in Florida, and the other was for a California group, Fix California, founded by Grenell. Grenell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The former first lady also received $155,000 from a Trump-aligned super PAC — called Make America Great Again, Again — for a speech she gave in Palm Beach, Florida, in December 2021, before Trump was a candidate.

She’s a regular at Log Cabin Republican events — in 2021, she was also the guest of honor at the group’s annual Spirit of Lincoln Gala.

The fundraising appearances also underscore how little Melania Trump has been on the campaign trail this year. In addition to her two appearances at the Log Cabin Republican, she appeared alongside her husband at a fundraiser hosted by billionaire investor John Paulson in Palm Beach and made a brief appearance at the Republican National Convention, though she did not speak as she did in 2016. There is no indication that she was paid for her appearance at Paulson’s fundraiser.

“She’s been so disconnected from this campaign and so absent that I imagine her saying, ‘If I volunteer my time, I’ll get paid for it,’” said Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump White House press secretary and top aide to Melania Trump who has become a critic of the former president. “Even when we were in the White House, she was always very concerned about people making money off her because she thought that was money she should be making.”

Grisham said that while she was in the White House in 2018, Melania Trump asked her staff to order a White House gift shop to stop selling Melania Trump memorabilia, such as bobblehead figurines, without permission.

“She was outraged. She didn’t like that they were making money off her back,” Grisham said.

Donald Trump’s financial disclosures also show that the former first lady earned more than $330,000 in the past year from a licensing deal to sell digital trading cards, or NFTs. Her website sells jewelry and other collectibles.

Additionally, the former first lady will release her memoir next month and embark on a promotional tour, separate from the campaign. In a series of short videos promoting her X-rated book, she made rare remarks about the attempted assassination of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, the 2020 election results and her history as a nude model.

“I can’t help but wonder why law enforcement didn’t arrest the shooter before the speech?” she said in one of the videos, referring to the gunman who shot and wounded Trump at a July 13 rally before being arrested by the Secret Service.

Melania Trump isn’t the only member of the Trump family who gets paid while in the political spotlight. Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid $60,000 for introducing her fiancé, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., at the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Her speech lasted less than three minutes.

It is not uncommon for former government officials to receive honoraria for speeches and appearances at events outside of political fundraisers.

Former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton earned more than $153 million in paid speaking engagements between 2001 and the former secretary of state’s 2016 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama reportedly earned $400,000 from a single speech at a Wall Street health care conference in 2017, which drew criticism from members of his own party at the time. And in the two years after he left the vice presidency and before he launched his presidential campaign, Joe and Jill Biden earned a combined $15.6 million, mostly from publishing deals and speaking engagements.

But officials for Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Bill Clinton say they were not paid for fundraising appearances during political campaigns.

The president’s son, Hunter Biden, has come under scrutiny for selling works of art, each valued at $85,000, at a Manhattan art gallery last spring, while his father was running for reelection.

By all accounts, the Log Cabin Republican’s fundraisers this year have been a success. Grenell posted on X in July that the former first lady “opened her New York penthouse tonight to raise money” for the group.

“This is the first campaign event ever held at the Trump residence,” he wrote. “And we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to get 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump.”

At the April event at Mar-a-Lago where Melania Trump spoke, the organization launched its “Road to Victory” program to target swing-state voters, according to Politico.

CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.