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Makena Kelly
Donald Trump’s crusade claimed on Friday to have raised more than $34 million following the announcement Thursday night of his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The big fundraiser comes the morning after a jury found the former president guilty in a secret money offender case filed in a Manhattan courtroom. Shortly after the verdict was announced, the crusade to turn his political disgrace into cash generated a flood of fundraisers. emails, social media posts, and text messages.
“I have been found guilty of a rigged impeachment trial for a witch hunt: I have done nothing wrong,” the first email of the crusade reads.
Republican lawmakers including J. D. Vance, Eli Crane and House Speaker Mike Johnson logged on to the crusade’s donation page on WinRed. The crusade even went so far as to warn applicants who earned negative scores to oppose raising cash for themselves in the wake of Trump’s verdict, according to Politico. The accumulation of traffic from donations to Trump’s Joint Fundraising Committee led to its shutdown, according to the crusade. The joint committee allocates part of its budget to the Republican National Committee.
“So many Americans were pressured to donate to President Trump’s crusade that WinRed’s pages were shut down,” Trump’s crusade wrote in an X post on Thursday. “We’re racing to get them back online as temporarily as possible. “
WinRed did not respond to WIRED’s requests to verify why the platform went offline. He was back online about an hour after he went offline.
On Thursday night, larger donations also began pouring in from Silicon Valley’s more sensible tech investors. Shaun Maguire, an investor at Sequoia Capital, posted a lengthy missive on X announcing that he would donate $300,000 to the Trump campaign. Maguire declined to identify other donors who are also contemplating backing Trump.
“A lot of investors are doing similar things, but I can’t know,” Maguire told WIRED in an email Thursday.
David Sacks, a venture capitalist who is organizing a fundraiser for Trump next month, echoes Maguire’s sentiment and suggests that Silicon Valley’s wealthiest donors were starting to lean toward Trump.
“After Biden’s disastrous presidency, Trump has a huge following in Silicon Valley; many are just afraid to admit it,” Sacks said in an X-ray message in response to Maguire on Thursday. “But with each and every act of bravery, like this, the dam starts to break. “
The influx of cash isn’t entirely surprising. Hours after Trump went to the Fulton County jail last August for a separate case, his crusade raised more than $7 million in donations. It also launched new products, such as T-shirts and mugs, featuring Trump’s photo.
Meanwhile, a Trump memecoin, in which the former president is said to have significant stakes, has hit an all-time high price after falling in first place on news of the verdict.
Far-right provocateurs and their supporters called Thursday’s verdict an online declaration of war, proving that the case would not hamper the former president’s defense.
Trump is expected to be sentenced on July 11, 4 days before the Republican National Convention.
“President Trump and our crusade are immensely grateful for this great help from patriots across our country. President Trump is fighting to save our country and the fifth of November is the day when Americans will give a genuine verdict,” Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, senior advisers to Trump’s crusade, said in a Friday.
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