By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's main fundraising committee raised more than $35 million during the April-June period, a campaign official said, nearly twice what the group gathered in the prior three months.

The acceleration in fundraising could be a sign that Trump's 2024 campaign coffers are benefiting from the former president's legal problems.

Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in June on charges that include mishandling classified documents after he left the White House in 2021. Prosecutors in New York City charged him in April in a separate case involving an alleged hush-money payment to a porn star.

Trump has disputed all the charges, saying he is the victim of a political witch hunt - an argument he uses regularly in his e-mailed fundraising appeals. In one such email, he also said, "They're not coming after me, they're coming after YOU," a theme he has echoed on the stump.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted the day after Trump's federal indictment, a vast majority of Republicans believe those charges are politically motivated.

Trump is the front-runner in a crowded field seeking the Republican presidential nomination for next November's election. His chief rival in that contest, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, only declared his candidacy in May and has yet to disclose how much money he has raised.

The Trump campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide further details on the second quarter fundraising, which was carried out by Trump's Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.

But the more than $35 million in reported donations far outstripped the $18.8 million that the joint committee raised in the first three months of the year.

The joint committee's most recent fundraising appeals disclose that 90% of the money it raises go to Trump's campaign, while the other 10% go to a separate group that helps fund Trump's legal expenses.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)