Former President Trump and his die-hard allies raised $250 million off their claims the 2020 election was stolen — however many of the funds went towards his newly created Save America PAC slightly than to pay for numerous challenges to Joe Biden’s victory, the Home choose committee probing final yr’s Capitol riot revealed Monday.
In a video presentation close to the tip of the committee’s second public listening to in 5 days, the panel’s senior investigative counsel, Amanda Wick, mentioned the forty fifth president’s marketing campaign “pushed false election claims to fundraise, telling supporters it will be used to combat voter fraud that didn't exist.”
In line with Wick, greater than $100 million alone was raised within the first week after Election Day.
The video included screenshots of emails imploring Trump supporters to donate to an “Official Election Protection Fund.”
“The choose committee found no such fund existed,” mentioned Wick.
The committee additionally performed audio of Trump 2020 marketing campaign digital director Gary Coby agreeing with an interrogator who advised the fund was merely a “advertising tactic.”
A lot of the cash, Wick mentioned, went to entities that straight benefited Trump’s household and associates slightly than “election-related litigation.”
Among the many outlays Wick cited from Save America PAC have been $1 million every to a pair of pro-Trump suppose tanks — the Conservative Partnership Institute and the America First Coverage Institute — in addition to greater than $200,000 to the Trump Resort Assortment and $5 million to Occasion Methods, the agency that helped placed on the Jan. 6, 2021 ‘Cease The Steal’ rally that precipitated the Capitol riot.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), accused Trump and his backers of swindling supporters who donated in good religion to assist the previous president’s authorized trigger.
“Small-dollar donors use scarce disposable earnings to help candidates and causes of their selecting, to make their voices heard, and people donors deserve the reality about what these funds can be used for,” she mentioned. “All through the committee’s investigation, we discovered proof that the Trump marketing campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to the place their funds would go and what they might be used for.
“Not solely was there the large lie, there was the large rip-off,” Lofgren added. “Donors should know the place their funds are actually going. They deserve higher than what President Trump and his staff did.”
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