WASHINGTON – From Election Day 2020, Donald J. Trump and his close allies have raised more than $ 390 million through aggressive fundraising promises promising bold political action, including fighting to undo the defeat of his re-election campaign by helping allied candidates win their campaigns and battles for saving America from Joe Biden and the radical left. “
In reality, however, campaign finance documents show that much of the money spent by Mr. Trump’s political committees has gone to pay for his 2020 campaign and boost his political operation. in anticipation of an expected presidential rise in 2024. Until a few months ago, $ 144 million remained in the bank.
A House of Representatives commission investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has suggested that there may be a criminal revelation in a particular strain of Mr Trump’s misleading calls for fundraising – those who are urging his supporters to donate to cancel his loss in the 2020 elections.
In a hearing Monday, the committee highlighted fundraising requests sent by Mr Trump’s campaign committees in the weeks following the election, seeking donations to the “Official Election Protection Fund”, which the Trump team says will be used to Combating what they claim without evidence was widespread electoral fraud in favor of candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr..
“The elected commission found that such a fund did not exist,” a commission investigator said in a video shown at the hearing. The fund has become a marketing ploy used to win over Mr Trump’s supporters.
According to the commission, this was a particularly cynical undertaking, because Mr Trump and his allies knew that his allegations of stolen elections were untrue. However, they continued to use fundraising calls to spread this lie and raise money, which the commission proposed was paid for the business of Mr Trump and groups run by his allies.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who is leading the committee’s presentation on Mr. Trump’s fundraising, suggested that his allies continue their fruitless legal challenges to the election because they need to justify the fundraiser.
Review the topics of the hearings of the House of Representatives committee on 6 January
After the hearing, she suggested that the Justice Department consider whether it was a crime for Mr. Trump to “deliberately deceive his donors, ask them to donate to a fund that does not exist and use the money raised for something other than what he said.” “
Liz Harrington, a spokesman for Mr Trump, dismissed the commission’s January 6 findings, saying in a statement that “no one is more committed to arranging our elections” than the former president, “and our political spending is fully in line with that. purpose. “
Campaign finance experts have expressed mixed views on the prospects for possible prosecution.
While misleading fundraising allegations are a key element of modern politics, the Ministry of Justice has in recent years accused a number of operators of so-called PAC fraud – political committees that raise money mostly to pay consultants who pay it. operate. These groups were usually not affiliated with candidates, let alone a former president.
Experts say any investigation into Mr Trump’s fundraising is likely to focus on his aides, not the former president himself.
And they pointed out that Trump’s committee to make America great again, the campaign that sent most of the requests for the Election Protection Fund, transferred funds to the Republican National Committee, which spends money on legal battles related to the 2020 election.
“Unlike some of these other fraudulent PAC lawsuits – where virtually none of the money raised went to satisfy the donor’s intentions – Trump may argue that some of the money raised in the post-election period has gone For litigation, and an additional part for the future of the election integrity effort, “said Brendan Fisher, a campaign finance expert with the EOM.
“It would certainly be new for the Department of Justice to file a fraud case against the former president’s PAC, but the fraudulent fundraising from Trump after the election was also new,” Mr Fischer said, adding that the amount Mr. Trump’s gathering after the election was “completely unprecedented.”
Stephen Spaulding, an employee of the good government group Common Cause, who advises Ms. Lofgren on electoral legislation in 2020, said the Justice Department should investigate whether the misleading fundraising “crossed the line of physical fraud.”
The panel’s January 6 video on the subject said that “allegations that the election was stolen were so successful that President Trump and his allies raised $ 250 million.”
It was not entirely clear how the committee reached the $ 250 million figure. That’s roughly the amount of money that Mr. Trump’s campaign committees and the RNC raised more than eight weeks after the Nov. 3 election, according to campaign documents from WinRed, the digital platform Republicans use to process online donations. .
But Mr Trump’s campaign commissions sent hundreds of requests during this frantic period, many of which did not concern the Election Protection Fund. And there is no public data showing how much money each fundraising request has brought.
The Jan. 6 panel called records from Salesforce.com, a provider that helped the Trump and RNC campaigns send emails that could provide some visibility into the amounts raised by individual fundraising requests.
The New York Times’ analysis of Mr. Trump’s fundraising in the 19 months after the election relied on data submitted to the Federal Election Commission by WinRed and other groups to estimate the total amounts collected by eight commissions. These include Mr Trump’s three election commissions, one of which was turned into a political action committee, as well as three super PACs run by close allies of Mr Trump and the PAC set up by Mr Trump after the so-called election. Save America, which became a major center of his current political operations. The assay does not include RNC
On Monday, January 6, the commission noted that instead of funding election-related litigation, “most of the money raised” after the election was transferred to Save America. The PAC “made millions of dollars in contributions to pro-Trump organizations,” the commission said, including more than $ 200,000 for Trump’s hotel properties and $ 1 million each for the America First Policy Institute and the Conservative Partnership Institute, non-governmental groups created and managed in part by former employees of Mr. Trump’s administration.
Both groups include initiatives that support stricter voting rules, which are broadly in line with Mr Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 elections.
The America First Policy Institute, which was set up last year to serve as a think tank for Trump supporters, has the look of a Trump administration waiting. He also paid for events with Mr. Trump at his private clubs, including Mar-a-Lago in South Florida and Bedminster in New Jersey.
Of the $ 98 million received from Save America, about $ 4 million was donated to allied candidates, PACs and party committees by the end of April.
Ms Lofgren, in an interview with CNN after the hearing, said Trump’s fundraising efforts were “worrying”, citing compensation received from Kimberly Guilfoil, who helped lead the fundraising efforts for the campaign. Mr Trump and the post-election political commissions, for remarks she made while introducing her fiancé Donald Trump Jr. to the January 6 Trump rally ahead of the attack on the Capitol.
According to an invoice reviewed by The Times, $ 60,000 was paid for “Key Speeches by Kimberly Guilfoil and Donald Trump Jr.” from Turning Point Action, a non-profit group that supported Mr Trump but is not among those led by Mr Trump’s close associates and is not included in the Times’ analysis of his fundraising.
A man familiar with Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony before the commission said the former president’s son had indicated that the money had gone to Ms. Guilfoil and that he had not received any of it.
Recent requests for funding from Mr Trump’s political operation have often relied on calls for Mr Trump’s support, without promising any specific spending target, such as the one sent by Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday. asking supporters to donate to help celebrate his father’s birthday.
Luke Broadwater contributed to the report. Andrew Fischer and Bea Malsky contributed to the study.
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