Politico reported:

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission’s long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.

After the election, The New York Times reported: that additional purchases were made:

Campaign finance reports for the final weeks of the campaign, covering Oct. 16 to Nov. 24, that are scheduled to be filed with the Federal Election Commission tomorrow will show additional purchases but totaling less than $30,000, Republican officials confirmed. The news was first reported by the National Journal today.

The officials said the clothing is all now in the hands of the R.N.C. and will be turned over to charity.

It is unclear if the purchases were actually made during the period of the report or simply reimbursed by the R.N.C. in that time frame. Ms. Palin said in interviews that the reports of the clothing purchases were overblown and that they were made only for the Republican national convention.

“Those clothes are not my property,” Ms. Palin said in an interview on Fox News. “We had three days of using clothes that the R.N.C. purchased.”