Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell takes on President Trump: Bank cards underwrite combat

AG Andrea Campbell says dumping taxpayer {dollars} into her combat in opposition to President Trump is defending Massachusetts residents, however critics argue her spending indicators a need to advance her political profession.

Campbell has filed 29 lawsuits in opposition to the Trump administration, and the Bay State lawyer common claims she has traveled to Washington, D.C., thrice already through the president’s second time period.

The AG’s workplace is utilizing taxpayer-funded bank cards to help its battle with what it describes because the administration’s “cruel and unlawful actions,” dropping $5,361 on D.C. motels within the latter half of final fiscal 12 months, a Herald evaluation reveals.

Campbell is dealing with warmth from the Massachusetts Republican Social gathering and a state fiscal watchdog after an preliminary Herald assessment discovered that her workplace’s whole spending with state-issued procurement playing cards, or P-cards, value taxpayers some $288,146 in Fiscal Yr 2025.

Of that quantity, the workplace spent $19,564 on D.C.-related expenditures, together with lodge stays, Amtrak prepare service and convention registration charges for staffers to attend trainings on the Nationwide Affiliation of Medicaid Fraud Management Models.

That’s on prime of the 12%, or $9 million, price range improve that the AG’s workplace acquired for fiscal 12 months 2026, bringing its whole allocation to $83 million, to help its combat in opposition to the Trump administration.

Whereas all of its lawsuits are lively, the AG’s workplace says that the “minimal costs” spent behind its combat are “largely administrative court costs,” starting from submitting and lawyer look charges to “in some cases, modest bond payments.”

The workplace didn’t present the Herald with the precise value that has gone into its wide-ranging authorized disputes with the administration.

“Our work countering the Trump Administration has preserved rights, freedoms, and billions in federal funding against illegal attack,” Campbell stated in an announcement shared with the Herald on Friday. “The return on the small cost of that work makes it an excellent and historically important investment.”

Going after Trump

On Friday, a federal choose in Boston blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship for the kids of fogeys who’re within the U.S. illegally, a case Campbell’s workplace introduced forth partially.

Campbell and her counterparts behind the go well with have argued that Trump’s birthright citizenship order is unconstitutional and threatens tens of millions of {dollars} for medical health insurance companies which might be contingent on citizenship standing.

P-card payments, which the Herald obtained via a public data request, present that Campbell spent $640 on lodge stays on the Hyatt Place in D.C., on Might 14 and 15, when she attended arguments within the birthright citizenship case on the Supreme Court docket.

The difficulty is anticipated to maneuver rapidly again to the nation’s highest court docket following Friday’s ruling.

Critics say Campbell’s animosity towards Trump is simply as robust as that of her predecessor, Gov. Maura Healey, who, as lawyer common, sued the president’s first administration 96 instances. That mark was greater than all however three of Healey’s counterparts from different states.

Healey received 77% of these instances, the evaluation discovered. Immigration ranked second with 13 whole lawsuits, trailing 58 environment-related complaints.

“Attorney General Campbell has done what many thought impossible: She is on pace to surpass her predecessor’s politicization of an office that once stood for protecting consumers, not bilking them with overseas junkets and chauffeured drivers,” MassGOP Government Director John Milligan instructed the Herald.

Taxpayers pay

Milligan was referring to how the Herald’s preliminary assessment of P-card spending within the AG’s workplace discovered Campbell racked up about $13,627 whereas attending a convention in France final July, with $9,000 of that quantity going towards transportation via Avis Chauffeur.

The Herald additionally discovered that the AG’s workplace had P-card expenditures stemming from 31 states in FY25, from California to Disney World in Florida. As well as, Campbell flew to the Caribbean trip vacation spot of St. Thomas, within the U.S. Virgin Islands, final month, to attend the Legal professional Normal Alliance’s annual convention.

The AG’s workplace has not supplied the full prices of the journeys to Paris and St. Thomas, nor has it shared how usually Campbell and her employees use taxpayer-funded P-cards whereas touring.

Of the workplace’s D.C.-related bank card expenditures final fiscal 12 months, registration charges for staffers to attend trainings on the Nationwide Affiliation of Attorneys Normal marked the most important share at $8,900, in keeping with the Herald’s assessment.

Resort stays trailed simply behind at $8,604, with 62.3% of that quantity coming after Trump retook workplace in January.

“This just perpetuates the notion that the Attorney General has higher political aspirations,” Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Diego Craney stated of Campbell’s D.C. lodge spending.

Political aspirations

Earlier than Bay Staters elected Campbell as lawyer common in November 2022, the 43-year-old Democrat served on the Boston Metropolis Council from 2016 to 2022, a number of of these years as council president. Campbell misplaced a mayoral bid in 2021.

Campbell’s first journey to D.C. this 12 months got here in late February when she testified at a “spotlight forum” that Bay State Sen. Elizabeth Warren held on her brainchild, the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau.

Information present that the AG’s workplace spent $1,019 on lodge stays on the Hyatt Place through the journey, when Campbell was in D.C. on Feb. 24 and 25, her workplace instructed the Herald.

In her testimony, Campbell highlighted the impression of hovering housing prices and utility payments on Bay Staters, calling affordability the “number one issue affecting our constituents.”

“In addition to increasing prices,” she stated, “there are companies and individuals preying on our consumers and devising ways to steal their money and scam and cheat them out of their hard-earned dollars.”

Republican gubernatorial candidates Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve are slamming Campbell’s combat in opposition to the Trump administration and her bank card spending habits. They linked their frustrations to how the AG has but to implement the audit of the Legislature.

“If she spent less time acting as the President’s chief antagonist,” Kennealy stated in an announcement, “and more time doing her job as the Commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer – enforcing the will of her constituents – we might have gotten the audit of the Legislature that 72% of Massachusetts citizens voted for.”

Shortsleeve added, respectively, he believes Campbell “should be suing the Legislature to enforce the audit,” which he stated can be a “better use of money.”

“Spending (nearly) $300,000 on junkets is a slap in the face to the hard-working people of Massachusetts,” Shortsleeve stated in an announcement shared with the Herald.

Campbell has stated that she voted for the poll query final fall, however the AG has raised issues over whether or not Auditor Diana DiZoglio can constitutionally assessment monetary and contract paperwork inside the Legislature.

Lawmakers have additionally pushed again, pointing to routine audits of their work carried out by exterior companies and made public on-line.

Extra to return in 2025

Campbell’s most up-to-date journey to D.C. got here final month, when she testified at a discussion board that the Joint Democratic Congressional Judiciary Committee hosted on June 23. The AG highlighted how the lawsuits her workplace has filed have helped block funding cuts to “life-saving medical research and vital state services.”

Campbell spent $311 at a Hilton lodge on that journey, P-card data present.

“The AGO is devoted to protecting the people and economy of the Commonwealth,” the workplace stated in an announcement shared with the Herald, “and we have demonstrated that commitment more strongly than ever in 2025.”