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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters earlier this month, as his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, left, listens.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Gerald Herbert, AP)
Donald Trump’s embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski got a raise last month, it seems.
Trump’s campaign paid $75,000 in February to Lewandowski’s firm, Green Monster Consulting, new Federal Election Commission filings show. That’s up from the $40,000 the Republican presidential candidate paid to the firm in January.
In 2015, Trump’s monthly payments to Lewandowski’s Salem, N.H., firm ranged from $20,000 to a little more than $40,000.
Lewandowski has faced increased scrutiny in recent days. Video footage over the weekend showed him and another man in close contact with a young protester at a Trump rally in Tucson. Earlier this month, a reporter for Breitbart News accused him of manhandling her at a Trump campaign event in Florida.
Lewandowski and Trump have denied the allegations.
On Sunday, Trump defended Lewandowski’s actions in Arizona, telling ABC News that Lewandowski “didn’t touch” the protester. The protesters in that portion of the arena were bearing “horrendous signs,” he said.
Trump said he credits Lewandowski for “having spirit. He wanted them to take down those horrible, profanity-laced signs.”
Trump campaign officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the increased payments to Green Monster. One of the February payments to the firm came Feb. 2, the day after Trump's second-place showing in Iowa.
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Lewandowski formed<span style="color: Red;">*</span>his consulting firm 2011, according to filings with the New Hampshire Secretary of State.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>In all, Green Monster has received a little more than $336,000 from the Trump campaign for consulting and travel expenses since last April, when Trump began testing the waters of a presidential bid. It’s hard to determine exactly how Lewandowski’s pay compares to rival campaign managers. If anything, he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>may be making less.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, paid more than $190,000 in January to Axiom Strategies, the Kansas City, Mo., consulting and direct-mail firm founded by his campaign manager, Jeff Roe. However, payments to Axiom for<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“political strategy consulting” are bundled together with other payments to the firm for other services,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>including travel, postage and publications.
By February, as Cruz battled Trump in the opening contests of the nomination fight, payments to Axiom Strategies for various services had soared to $1.1 million.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s monthly payments to firms associated with his campaign manager, Danny Diaz, also exceeded six figures this year, filings show. In February, the month Bush abandoned his presidential bid, he paid more than $143,000 to two Diaz-aligned firms, FP1 Strategies and FP1 Digital, for everything from travel to Web ads.
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Trump has been spending less than his rivals, even as he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>racks up more wins.
Cruz, Trump’s closest competitor in the delegate chase, burned through $17.5 million February. By comparison, Trump<span style="color: Red;">*</span>spent $9.5 million, relying more on big rallies and wall-to-wall TV coverage than advertising to boost his campaign.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Among Trump’s big ticket items in February: $541,742 to buy Trump-branded merchandise, ranging from caps to mugs.
Contributing: Christopher Schnaars
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