Donald Trump's 'fresh thinking' on display in unusual campaign spending

Donald Trump spent all last fall and much of the winter defying the conventional wisdom about presidential campaigns, and he's apparently hoping to ride his unorthodox campaign choices all the way to victory in the November election, according to Federal Election Commission filings examined by The Wall Street Journal. Half of his campaigns 10 highest-paid consultants have never worked for another presidential campaign, for example, versus just one of Hillary Clinton's Top 10 consultants.

"Trump wants people with fire in the belly," not necessarily experience, political consultant Stuart Jolly tells The Journal. "Loyalty is right up there at the top." Don McGahn, the Trump campaign's general counsel, added: "Fresh thinking is good." Despite earlier frugality, Trump is increasing his campaign spending, though he still isn't paying much for TV ads or field operations, outsourcing much of his get-out-the-vote effort to the Republican National Committee.

Notably, $15 million of the $90 million he spent through July — or about 17 percent of his total spending — was "paid to companies linked to himself or his children, or to reimburse their travel expenses," The Wall Street Journal said. That includes a total of $881,000 in rent paid to rent for his campaign headquarters inside his own Trump Tower, a number that caught people's attention when the monthly rent jumped 500 percent as soon as campaign donors started footing the bill, even though Trump's staff didn't grow.

A Trump spokesman told The Journal that Trump raised his own rent in because he expanded the office space in anticipation of more campaign staff, and his general counsel, McGahn, said the use campaign funds at Trump properties — including at least five Trump golf resorts, three Trump restaurants, and a wine company owned by son Eric Trump — complies with FEC rules and is only logical: "It makes perfect sense to me that you're going to use facilities that you know are of a certain quality." Read more about Trump's campaign spending at The Wall Street Journal.