QAnon-linked legal fund spent $400,000 defending Trump allies, filing shows

A fund intended to pay the legal bills of former president Donald Trump’s allies backed chiefly by reported QAnon supporters has spent nearly $400,000, the bulk of which went to a single law firm, new records showed Wednesday.

The Patriot Legal Defense Fund received more than $1.5 million between its creation in mid-July and the end of December, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Of the total spent by the group, $221,000 went to the firm Brand Woodward Law, mostly in the form of professional and legal fees.

Another $150,000 from the fund went to the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher for the nondescript purpose of “services rendered,” the IRS filing shows.

The fund was created by Trump campaign advisor Susie Wiles and former campaign aide Michael Glassner to help pay the bills of Trump’s supporters facing lawsuits arising from their “participation in the political process,” according to its records.

Of the fund’s 23 contributors, the biggest contribution by far came from the Caryn L. Hildenbrand Living Trust, which donated $1 million in mid-November.

The trust is associated with Caryn Borland and her husband, Michael Borland, who together gave more than $1 million toward Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, The New York Times reported.

The Borlands have reportedly expressed support for QAnon, the internet-born conspiracy theory involving a belief that Trump and his allies were fighting a behind-the-scenes war against a global sex-trafficking ring run by powerful Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles.

In 2020, then-Vice President Mike Pence canceled plans to attend a Trump campaign fundraiser hosted by the Borlands in Montana after their link with QAnon came to light, according to the Associated Press.

When CNBC called a phone number associated with Caryn Borland and asked to speak with…