WASHINGTON Three years after agreeing to pay Donald Trump s legal bills on the rationale that cases against him were politically motivated, the Republican National Committee could face pressure from its coup-attempting presumed nominee to pay not just tens of millions of dollars more in legal fees but more than $450 million in likely judgments against him.

Thats why he wants his people on the inside. Its not about building up MAGA but rather getting MAGA to pay his bills, said former RNC chair Michael Steele, referring to the Make America great again motto thats become shorthand for Trumps followers.

The RNC and its donors have all been hoodwinked by the flimflam man, said Jennifer Horn, a former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party and, because of that, a former RNC member. Theres no rationale for any of it that makes sense in a rational world.

Although Trump has won only a few dozen delegates of the 1,215 he needs to secure the GOP presidential nomination, he announced this week that one of his top aides, Chris LaCivita, would take over the partys day-to-day operations while daughter-in-law Lara Trump would become the RNCs co-chair.

And that has some RNC members worried that the same logic party officials used to justify spending donor money on Trumps legal fees in 2021 could now be offered as a reason to cover some or all of the $88 million he must pay the woman he raped and then defamed, and the $370 million or more he will likely have to pay the state of New York for business fraud.

Were not in the business of indemnifying people for bad behavior, said Oscar Brock, an RNC member from Tennessee. Also, we dont have $400 million. Last I heard, we have about $9 million, and thats already committed for salaries and bills.

Neither LaCivita nor Lara Trump responded to HuffPost queries on the matter. Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesperson, referred to an Axios story that contains the single line: The senior official from Trumps campaign said the RNC wont pay Trumps legal bills, but it does not name the senior official.