Nikki Haley Warns Trump Will Siphon Money from the RNC Like It’s His ‘Legal Defense Fund’ If Nominated

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said if Republicans nominate Donald Trump for president again, he will pay his many legal bills using bales of donor money given to the Republican National Committee.

On Friday, a judge in Manhattan ordered the former president to pay $354 million for defrauding banks and insurance companies. The judge also ruled that Trump may not run a business or serve as an executive of a company in New York state for three years. Trump railed against the ruling online and in person. He has said he will appeal.

Haley, the former South Carolina governor who also served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, joined Friday’s edition of The Source on CNN, where she expressed concern that the ex-president will use the Republican National Committee as his legal “piggybank.”

“How damning do you believe this ruling is?” host Kaitlan Collins asked.

Haley responded by citing a report showing that Trump spent more than $50 million of his donors’ money on legal bills. Moreover, Haley noted Trump is trying to install his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair of the RNC:

My biggest issue is, I don’t want the RNC to become, you know, his legal defense fund. I don’t want the RNC to become his piggy bank for his personal court cases. We’ve already seen him spend $50 million worth of campaign contributions towards his personal court cases.

Now, we see him trying to get control of the RNC so that he can continue not to have to pay his own legal fees. The problem is that doesn’t help us when any seats in the House, in the Senate or anything else if the RNC is all focused on his legal fees. The RNC’s practically broke now as it is. And so this is a bigger issue for the Republican Party…

He’s made the co-chair his daughter-in-law. He’s made his campaign manager the director of operations. He’s trying to control the RNC after the fact that he tried to get me out of the race so that he could be the presumptive nominee. All of that is so that he has an arm to pay his legal fees. That’s the fear that every Republican should have, because we won’t win anything if he goes down that path.

The former governor’s concerns are hardly made from whole cloth. On Tuesday, Lara Trump told Newsmax, “Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC. That is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.”

Trump is facing a mountain of legal problems. In addition to appealing Friday’s civil judgment against him, he is under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions. Still, he remains the runaway frontrunner to win the GOP nomination.

Watch above via CNN.