In a searing analysis of post-election fundraising by Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that they “leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December.”

This jackpot, reports the Times’ Shane Goldmacher and Rachel Shorey, was provided by “hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters” who “listened and opened their wallets.”

The reporters reached their conclusions after analyzing Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings from Nov. 4 — the day after the election — through the end of 2020.

During that time, they found, “more than two million donations flowed to the former president and his shared committees with the Republican National Committee.” In the two weeks before Dec. 14, when Joe Biden’s victory was certified, Trump and the RNC hauled in an average of $2.9 million a day.

So where did all the money go? Mostly into Trump’s political pocket.

“The Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to … claims” of a stolen election, a falsehood Trump clings to even now.

Most of the money — perhaps $175 million — stayed in Trump’s and the GOP’s hands, “even as they continued to issue breathless, aggressive and often misleading appeals for cash,” the Times says.

What portion of the haul Trump did spend “was plowed mostly into a public-relations campaign and to keep his perpetual fund-raising machine whirring,” with only around $10 million going to actual legal costs….”

The largest share of the take now sits in bank accounts of Save America, the political action committee Trump formed after the election and in an account shared by Trump and the RNC.

Trump’s biggest donors mostly sat this out, while grassroots supporters — “drawn to his lie that the election result would soon be somehow wiped away” — dug deeply into their own bank accounts and felt the financial sting. After Nov. 24, the Times says, only about a dozen donors gave $25,000 or more.