FILE - In this July 11, 2017, file photo, Donald Trump Jr. is interviewed by host Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel television program, in New York. The Republican National Committee has spent nearly... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this July 11, 2017, file photo, Donald Trump Jr. is interviewed by host Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel television program, in New York. The Republican National Committee has spent nearly... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — The Republican National Committee has paid nearly $200,000 in legal fees for President Donald Trump's eldest son in connection with the Russia investigation, a committee official said Tuesday. 
 
 More than $166,000 was paid to Donald Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas. Another $30,000 went to the law firm of Williams & Jenson, which helped prepare him for testimony. The RNC official insisted on anonymity to discuss financial information not yet made public. 
 
 The RNC is expected to release its August spending totals Wednesday, but that report will not include the spending on Trump Jr.'s legal fees. Those figures will appear on the committee's September report, the official said. 
 
 Trump Jr.'s attorneys' fees were paid for out of the "legal proceedings account," a pre-existing account that high-dollar donors to the party knowingly contribute to. The payments were not taken from the party's general fund and will not reduce party spending on political work, the official said. 
 
 Trump Jr. recently testified in private to Senate investigators that he did not collude with Russia to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign against his father. 
 
 Congressional investigators and Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller want to learn more about a June 2016 meeting Trump Jr. had at Trump Tower in New York with a Russian lawyer as part of their separate but broader inquiries into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. 
 
 U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia tried to influence the election to help Trump win. 
 
 Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president, also attended the June 2016 meeting. 
 
 As of mid-July, Trump's presidential campaign had spent almost $1 million on legal fees this year, according to a campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission. That included a $50,000 charge for Futerfas' law firm. The payment was made shortly before news reports about the younger Trump's Russia meeting. 
 
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 President Trump is reportedly using money from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and his reelection campaign to pay some of the legal costs surrounding the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
 
 Two payments totaling $231,250 have already been made and will be disclosed on federal election forms due on Wednesday, the RNC confirmed to The Hill. Reuters reported the payments first earlier on Tuesday. 
 
 Trump has also used money from his campaign coffers for lawyer costs associated with the Russia investigation being run by former FBI director Robert Mueller, the Reuters report said. 
 
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 Lawmakers and political officials can use their campaign accounts to pay for attorneys, as long as it stems from any work related to being a public official. 
 
 
 
 In one example, a judge last year ruled that former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) could not use his campaign funds to pay to defend the allegations he had solicited sex in an airport bathroom. 
 
 The money is not coming from the RNC's main coffer, which is used to support candidates and political campaigns, a RNC spokeswoman told The Hill. 
 
 Payments “have been paid with funds from a pre-existing legal proceedings account and do not reduce by a dime the resources we can put towards our political work,” RNC spokeswoman Cassie Smedile said. 
 
 Created by Congress two years ago, the legal proceedings account gives the Democratic and Republican Party committees the ability to raise money from donors to pay for legal fees and allows contributors to give up to $100,200. 
 
 Although it was established to help pay for the costs associated with things like election recounts, it is a relatively new fundraising vehicle and there is not much guidance for how it can be used. 
 
 Since the election, the RNC's legal proceedings account has raised about $3.35 million, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records and figures provided by the RNC set to show up in its August report on Wednesday. 
 
 After all expenditures, the account still has "millions" left over, the RNC said. 
 
 During the RNC’s summer meeting in Tennessee, the idea of paying for some of Trump's legal fees was first discussed — and committee members were split, one GOP source told The Hill on Tuesday. The Washington Post reported in July that some in Trump's orbit were pressuring Republican Party leaders to chip in. 
 
 Having the Republican Party help fund the president's legal costs associated with a criminal investigation is virtually unprecedented. But, prior to the Reuters article, the Republican source told The Hill that the RNC was likely to fall in line with whatever Trump asks. 
 
 "When it comes to the RNC, I can’t think of a time where a Republican president has expressed that something should happen and it didn’t happen," the person told The Hill earlier in the day. 
 
 RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said in July that she was not sure whether the practice would be legal. 
 
 "I'm always going to look to support the president. But we've gotta just make sure that anything we do is legal and then we'd have to talk to people who donated to us and make sure they'd want to do it that way," she said on WMAL's "Mornings on the Mall" radio show. 
 
 "There's other ways to support the president. There's a legal defense fund that you could start. There's lots of other ways. But we, of course, support the president," she said. 
 
 Trump’s campaign account shelled out nearly Trump disclosed $678,000 in “legal consulting” between April and June, according to a Politico tally of Federal Election Commission records, but it's unclear what kind of work the expenses were for. Campaigns pay lawyers for election law-related compliance, which are disclosed on forms. 
 
 — Ben Kamisar contributed to this report. It was updated at 6:50 p.m. 

 On December 16, 2014, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 83). Provisions of that law enable national party committees to establish accounts to defray certain expenses incurred with respect to: 
 
 
 
 Presidential nominating conventions, 
 
 
 
 National party headquarters buildings, and 
 
 
 
 Election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings. 
 
 
 
 Until the Commission adopts new regulations, national party committees that establish such accounts should report the activities of those accounts as described. 
 
 Although party committees normally disclose their contributions on Form 3X, Line 11(a), the Commission's forms currently do not provide a clear way to distinguish between contributions deposited into the committees' separate accounts. Thus, as described, national party committees should report the contributions deposited into their presidential nominating convention, national party headquarters buildings, or election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings accounts as "other federal receipts," with the appropriate descriptions. Similarly, the committees should report expenditures from these accounts as "other federal operating expenditures" or "other disbursements" (depending upon the account, as explained), with the appropriate descriptions. 
 
 Interim reporting instructions for national party committee accounts 
 
 Report all receipts and disbursements for all accounts pursuant to the Federal Election Campaign Act, as amended, and Commission regulations.
– The Republican National Committee has admitted spending more than $400,000 to cover Russia-related legal bills for members of the Trump family—but it says the legal fees won't take a dime away from election spending. The RNC says it has paid more than $230,000 to two members of Trump's legal team, but the money comes from a legal proceedings account, which is separate from funds used for political work, Politico reports. An RNC official tells the AP that the committee has also paid almost $200,000 toward Donald Trump Jr.'s legal fees, including $30,000 for an attorney who helped prepare him for Senate testimony earlier this month. Under a law created in 2014, the national committees of both parties were allowed to establish legal proceedings accounts to cover the expenses of election recounts and other legal matters. Donors are allowed to contribute a maximum of $100,200. Federal records show that the RNC's legal proceedings account has raised $3.35 million since the election, meaning it still has millions left after paying Russia-related legal fees for both Trumps, the Hill reports. In a move described as "highly unusual," Trump has also spent more than $500,000 in campaign funds on legal fees.