Donald Trump’s campaign GoFundMe for hurricane relief raises a few red flags.
Donald Trump’s campaign has begun raising money for hurricane relief—but it’s not exactly clear how that money will be used.
Two weeks ago, the Trump campaign created a GoFundMe “as an official response for MAGA supporters to offer their financial assistance to their fellow Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene,” according to the fundraiser website.
A few days after the page went live, it was updated with a list of the charities that would receive the MAGA funds.
Fitting with Trump’s smears against federal relief efforts, three of the four charities listed—Samaritan’s Purse, Water Mission, and Mtn2Sea Ministries—are Christian or Evangelical NGOs. The fourth charity listed is the “Clinch Foundation,” which is likely the Clinch Memorial Hospital’s Foundation in Valdosta, Georgia.
The page did not, however, say how the campaign planned to disburse funds from the Trump campaign’s pot—more than $7.7 million as of Monday. The fundraiser has received donations of $500,000 each from Republican megadonors Steve and Andrea Wynn and former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler.
If the money is never spent for hurricane relief, then this is straight up fraud and possibly money laundering (depending on how the money is finally spent). However, there are likely legal time limits set, so they could distribute some funds at some distant time in the future to avoid prosecution.
We’ve already seen this play out nearly to the end with the “We build the Wall” graft. One participant is in prison for 4 years already. Steve Bannon’s trial for this crime is upcoming later this year. source
The gofundme page claims that they’ve already disbursed some funds so they’ve already covered that base.
Gonna need some details on where they went.
Trump lives in Florida and it probably rained and was windy in Mar a Lago, so he needed relief money to pay the lawn care team. “Disbursed” to the needy.