According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump has “taken issue” with some of the services provided by a veteran GOP strategist and is refusing to pay him nearly $767,000 that is still allegedly owed.
Trump’s hiring of Tony Fabrizio was supposed to be a sign that his campaign was finally bringing experienced political operatives on board. Fabrizio’s resume includes being an adviser to Republicans 1996 GOP nominee Bob Dole to Florida Governor Rick Scott.
A friend of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, Fabrizio persuaded Trump that he was in need of a pollster. But after Manafort left the campaign in August followed by the hiring of Kellyanne Conway as a pollster, rumors started to swirl that Trump and Fabrizio were at odds.
From the Washington Post:
Even though he was hired in May, the campaign did not make any payments to Fabrizio until September, when his firm received nearly $624,000, federal filings show. Trump’s finance reports show that the campaign owes the firm an additional $55,300 on top of the $766,756.67 in debt that it is contesting.
Fabrizio’s polling firm has also been paid by the Committee on Arrangements for the 2016 Republican National Convention, which gave it $273,378 in July, federal filings show.
Trump’s refusal to pay for services rendered has been a reoccurring allegation. An expansive USA Today report from this summer revealed that he’s been involved in over 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades, many from “ordinary Americans” who say Trump and his affiliates have refused to pay them.
According to the USA Today report, at least “60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings” document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work.
“Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties,” the report says. “And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.”
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