WASHINGTON – Since election day in 2020, Donald J. Trump and his close allies have raised more than $ 390 million through aggressive fund-raising pledges promising bold political action, including fighting to overthrow the government. his defeat in his re-election campaign, helping Allied candidates win their own. campaigns and struggle “to save Joe Biden’s America and the radical left.”
In reality, however, campaign funding documents show that much of the money spent by political committees affiliated with Mr. Trump was earmarked to pay for his 2020 campaign and to step up his political operation in anticipation of a presidential race scheduled for 2024. A few months ago, $ 144 million was left in the bank.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol suggests there could be a criminal exposure to a particular strain of Mr. Misleading fundraising appeals. Trump: Those who urge his supporters to give in to efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election.
At a hearing on Monday, the panel highlighted the fundraising requests submitted by Mr. Campaign Committees. Trump in the weeks leading up to the election, in search of donations for an “Official Election Advocacy Fund” that Trump’s team claimed would be used to fight what they claimed. without evidence it was rampant election fraud in favor of candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“The select committee found that such a fund did not exist,” a committee investigator said in a video shown to the audience. He turned the fund into a marketing ploy that was used to defraud Trump supporters.
It was a particularly cynical effort, according to the committee, because Mr. Trump and his allies knew that their claims of a stolen election were false. However, they continued to use appeals to raise funds to spread this falsehood and to raise money that the committee suggested was being paid to Mr. Trump’s business and groups led by his allies.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who led the committee’s presentation on Mr. Trump, suggested that his allies continued their useless legal challenges in the election because they had to justify their fundraising.
Review the issues of the January 6 House Committee hearings
After the hearing, he suggested that the Justice Department assess whether it was a crime for Mr. Trump to “intentionally deceive his donors, ask them to make a donation to a non-existent fund, and use the money raised for a other than what he said. ”
Liz Harrington, a Trump spokeswoman, set aside the panel’s findings on Jan. 6, saying in a statement that “no one is more committed to arranging our election” than the former president, “and our political spending is fully synchronized with this “. goal.”
Campaign funding experts expressed conflicting views on the prospects for possible prosecution.
While misleading fundraising claims are a staple of modern politics, in recent years the Department of Justice has charged several so-called PAC-scam operators: political committees that raise money primarily to pay consultants who operen. These groups were not usually associated with candidates, let alone a former president.
Experts said that any investigation into the fundraising of Mr. Trump would probably address his aides, not the former president himself.
And they noted that the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, the campaign committee that sent the most applications for the election defense fund, transferred funds to the Republican National Committee, which spent money on legal fights related to 2020 elections.
“In contrast to some of these other PAC court scams, where none of the money raised was actually intended to meet donor intent, Trump could argue that some of the funds raised in the post-election period went to litigation and An additional portion was earmarked for future “electoral integrity” efforts, said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance expert for the Documented Control Group.
“It would certainly be new for the Justice Department to initiate a case of fraud against a former president’s PAC, but the fraudulent fundraising after the Trump election was also new,” Fischer said. the amount the Trump team had raised after the election was “completely unprecedented.”
Stephen Spaulding, an official from the Common Cause Good Governance Group who advised Ms Lofgren on electoral law issues in 2020, said the Justice Department should look into whether “misleading fundraising” crossed the line of fraud. electronic “.
The January 6 panel video on the subject stated that “claims 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. It roughly corresponds to the amount of money that Mr. Trump and the RNC raised more than eight weeks after the Nov. 3 election, according to campaign funding documents from WinRed, the digital platform Republicans use to process online donations.
But the campaign committees of Mr. Trump sent hundreds of requests in that frantic period, many of which did not refer to the electoral defense fund. And there is no public data showing how much money any fundraising application generated.
The Jan. 6 panel cited records from Salesforce.com, a vendor that helped the Trump campaign and the RNC send out emails, which could provide some visibility into the amounts raised by individual fundraising requests. background.
The New York Times’ analysis of Mr. Trump during the 19 months since the election relied on data submitted to the Federal Electoral Commission by WinRed and other groups to evaluate the totals collected by eight committees. They include the three campaign committees of Mr. Trump, one of whom became a political action committee, as well as three super PACs led by close allies of Mr. Trump and a PAC that Mr. Trump started after the election, called Save America, which has become the main focus of his ongoing political operations. The analysis does not include the RNC
On Monday, the Jan. 6 panel 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 committee said, including more than $ 200,000 to Trump’s hotel properties and $ 1 million each to the American First Policy Institute and the Conservative Partnership Institute. , nonprofit groups initiated and run in part by former Trump administration officials.
Both groups include initiatives that support stricter voting rules that generally align with the unfounded claims of Mr. Trump on election fraud in the 2020 election.
The America First Policy Institute, which began last year to serve as a think tank for Trump supporters, looks like a Trump administration is waiting. He has also paid to hold events with Mr. Trump in his private clubs, such as Mar-a-Lago, South Florida, and Bedminster, New Jersey.
Of the $ 98 million received by Save America, about $ 4 million had been given 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 effort was a “shoulder,” citing compensation from Kimberly Guilfoyle, who helped lead the effort. of fundraising for the Trump campaign and post-election policy. committees, for the remarks he made to present his fiancé, Donald Trump Jr., at the January 6 Trump demonstration that preceded the Capitol attack.
According to a bill seen by The Times, $ 60,000 was paid for “masterful speeches by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr.” of Turning Point Action, a non-profit group that has supported Mr. Trump, but who is not among those led by Mr. Trump and that is not included in the Times analysis on his fundraising.
A person known with the statement of Donald Trump Jr. on the panel he said that the ex-president’s son had indicated that the money had gone to Mrs. Guilfoyle and that he had not received anything.
The recent fundraising requests for the political operation of Mr. Trump has often relied on appeals to support Mr. Trump, without promising any specific spending targets, like the one Donald Trump Jr. sent Tuesday. asking supporters to make a donation to help celebrate their father’s birthday. .
Luke Broadwater contributed to the report. Andrew Fischer and Bea Malsky contributed to the research.