New questions raised about Melania Trump’s lucrative Log Cabin speech

New questions are emerging about the $237,500 compensation former first lady Melania Trump received when she spoke at a Log Cabin Republicans event.

The payment was initially reported to have come from the Palm Beach chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans. She spoke at an event on April 20 at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where she claims to live full-time, along with her husband, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But now, “it’s a mystery who actually wrote the check,” CNN reports. Charles Moran, chairman of the National Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN that the group didn’t fund the payment and that Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure form didn’t provide any further information.

CNN said it was unclear whether Melania Trump received a speaking fee for another Log Cabin event in July, but that she did make at least one request to donors. A source told the network that the request came from Richard Grenell, a gay man who served as ambassador to Germany in President Donald Trump’s administration. Grenell did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CNN or from a spokesman for Melania Trump.

According to previous financial disclosure documents viewed by CNN, the former first lady was also paid $250,000 for a Log Cabin event in December 2022 and received at least two other payments of the same amount that month to speak to groups. One of those groups, Fix California, was founded by Grenell. Those events took place shortly after Donald Trump announced he would run for president again.

The events were not fundraisers for Donald Trump’s campaign, but rather for related groups. Still, “experts in campaign finance and government ethics say paying the spouse of a presidential candidate to attend a campaign fundraiser is unusual, ethically questionable and should at the very least be properly documented on disclosure forms,” ​​CNN reports.

“It seems pretty self-serving, and just my general observation is that I’m not used to seeing this,” Virginia Cantor, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, told the network.

“While you can show that the payment is a speaking fee for the Log Cabin Republicans, you also need to report the source of the payment. Otherwise, you cannot assess the conflict of interest and you are in violation of the rules,” she added. “The honorarium should have been properly reported so that the source of the income was clearly stated.”