Capitol Insurrection Means Millions For Minions Of Trump World
The deadly, violent Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection by trump supporters has become a gold mine for thousands of people who have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars that have been donated under the guise of supporting trump’s claim of voter fraud and defending the scores of people who were involved in the attack.
Alexander Cannon is one of the people whose livelihoods depend on funds raised under dubious circumstances by trump and related organizations since the riot. Cannon, the lawyer for The Trump Organization, was paid $135,138.65 out of a $250 million fund collected from donors who were told the contributions would be used for trump’s personal legal bills.
A crowdfunding website, GiveSendGo, is meant to give Christians the opportunity to be supported by the body of Christ but a large amount has been raised to support the body of Kyle Rittenhouse who shot and killed two protesters at a Wisconsin rally against police shootings of African Americans. Another crowdfunding site has raised tens of thousands of dollars to defend members of the far right Proud Boys and other groups whose members were arrested after the Jan. 6 attempted coup.
Former Trump aide Peter Navarro is crowdfunding online for his legal fees since he defied a Congressional subpoena to turn over information to the House panel investigating the Jan.6, 2021, riot.
A Florida Republican candidate for congress duped seniors when he raised money by inferring that donors would be supporting trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis when neither got any of the money raised.
Lawyer John Eastman, an architect of the bogus scheme to award the 2020 presidential election to trump on the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection, has raised more than $240,000 to cover his legal costs from the givesendgo crowdfunding site.
Let’s start with trump and his solicitation website that carries a banner headline, “OFFICIAL ELECTION DEFENSE FUND” and “CONTRIBUTE NOW.” The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack and related issues, has said that the “election defense fund” never actually existed. Instead, donations have been split between the Trump superpac, “Save America,” which gets 60 percent of the money, and the Republican National Committee (RNC), which gets the other 40 percent, according to a Reuters report.
The House panel is looking into how $250 million raised for the “election defense fund” was spent and whether donors were duped into contributing money based on trump’s baseless claims about a stolen election. The panel has said that money collected for the “election defense fund” was funneled to other destinations, including the trump business properties.
That’s where Cannon comes in. He was one of many trump employees and supporters who received payments from Trump’s political groups since Jan. 7, according to a report by Huff Post.
Federal Election Commission data showed that 20 people received funds from a high of $135,138.65 for Cannon down to $1,625.00 for Jonathan Turcotte, identified as the Rapid Response Director and War Room Director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Another trumper who benefited was Sean Dollman, the chief financial officer for trump’s 2020 campaign. He collected a cool $111,104.32. Dollman has testified before the House committee looking into the insurrection.
Darren Centinello, a staffer on the 2020 Trump campaign, was paid $56,234.22. His wife, Elizabeth Pipko, a former model, and also a former trump staffer, was instrumental in the trump campaign to win over Jewish voters. Centinello and Pipko were married in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Nicholas Luna, an assistant to the President, was one of his “body men,” responsible to be with trump throughout the day and night. Luna’s annual salary was $183,000 and he was paid $48,057.28 from the legal defense campaign funds. Luna is married to another White House Aide, Cassidy Dumbauld.
A total of $20,158.16 was paid out to Madison Faupel, chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans, president and founder of the right wing, Turning Point USA at the University of Minnesota, and an executive board member of Collegians For A Constructive Tomorrow.
A longtime Florida GOP fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, schedules events at Mar-a-Lago. She received $8,068.71 from the defense fund but her firm, Forward Strategies, was paid $128,125 from the Make America Great Again Action super PAC. O’Rourke was reportedly subpoenaed in federal prosecutors’ probe of longtime trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Crowd funding sites have proven extremely successful for many of the people associated with the Jan. 6 insurrection.
One of the more popular crowd funding sites is givesendgo.com, formed in 2014 to support Christian causes. The site has gained a reputation for facilitating the funding of far-right activists and extremist groups.
Trump’s lawyer, Eastman, used givesendgo.com to raise $241,892 toward his goal of $250,000. The site notes that Eastman “advised the President about constitutional ways to prevent illegal conduct of the election from determining the results, and he spoke before the President at the Save America rally on January 6.”
It says that “his efforts to ensure a free and fair election” led to his forced retirement from the post of dean Chapman University’s law school. The site says that Eastman “has been targeted by hard core leftist activists” and that he has been subpoenaed by “the hyper-partisan January 6 Committee in the House of Representatives, which is targeting anyone involved in election integrity efforts as well as those engaged in freedom of speech and association to voice their objections to illegality in the conduct of the election.”
Navarro, who hopes to collect more than $150,000 in contributions, is offering donors of $100 or more a free copy of his book, “Taking Back Trump’s America.”
A fundraiser titled “Raise Money For Kyle Rittenhouse Legal Defense” has raised more than $314,000, in part, to pay Rittenhouse’s lawyer, Lin Wood, one of the lawyers in trump’s claims that he was robbed of a reelection. In 2021, a judge found that Wood and eight other lawyers had participated in “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” by filing a baseless, frivolous lawsuit in order to undermine public confidence in the democratic process.
GiveSendGo solicited donations to help Rittenhouse, who was 17-years-old when he shot and killed two people at a protest on Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis. He was later acquitted of the charges. The GiveSendGo website described its mission “to give Christians the opportunity to be supported by the body of Christ.”
The solicitation page notes that “Kyle Rittenhouse just defended himself from a brutal attack by multiple members of the far-leftist group ANTIFA — the experience was undoubtedly a brutal one, as he was forced to take two lives to defend his own. This young man is a hero. Give him a medal and make him a millionaire. Every patriot can spare him a few bucks.”
Another crowdfunding site, “Our Freedom Funding,” has raised $41,900 for Zach Rehl, leader of the Philadelphia chapter of the right-wing extremist group, Proud Boys. He was arrested for his part in the Jan. 6 insurrection and charged with seditious conspiracy.
The page says that Rehl is “non-violent” and that once in the Capitol, “he did not assault any police officers, he did not push through any barricades, he did not break into the Capitol, and he did not damage any property.”
It said that since his arrest, Rehl has missed the birth of his daughter and “he has never been able to hold his child.”
“Zach is a father, a husband, Marine Corps Veteran, and Patriot who loves his Country. He has fought for all of us, now he needs us to fight for him,” the fundraising page says.
Another site on “Our Freedom Funding” has raised $7,124 for Ethan Nordean, a Proud Boys leader who also has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.
The funding site says Nordean, also known as Rufio Panman, “is an American patriot and has been a huge proponent of freedom during his adult life, protecting people from violence while expressing their 1st amendment rights and standing up against people who prey on those unable to defend themselves.”
Kelly and Connie Meggs, a married couple who are members of another militant right wing group, the Oath Keepers, have raised more than $152,000 through the GiveSendGo site. Charged with participating in the Jan. 6 riot the Meggs were described on the site as a “good Christian family” who “wanted to support their president, Donald Trump, and did nothing wrong.”
Another GiveSendGo campaign has raised more than $32,000 for Derek Kinnison, who was among four members of the Three Percenters, a right-wing militia, who were indicted on charges including conspiracy; obstructing an official proceeding; unlawful entry on restricted building or grounds; and tampering with documents or proceedings.
A fraud of another kind involved Erick Aguilar, a GOP candidate for congress from Florida who was scamming potential donors into believing that he was seeking donations not for himself but for trump and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Because of his misleading campaign, Aguilar has been banned from using WinRed, an online fundraising platform that has helped Republican candidates raise billions of dollars since launching in June 2019.
Aguilar hasn’t been endorsed by either trump or DeSantis, but not for lack of trying. He doesn’t name trump or DeSantis in his fundraising emails but he says that he will “Strengthen ELECTION INTEGRITY! TRUMP WON!” and his Facebook and Twitter accounts promote conspiracy theories that the FBI was behind the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
One of Aguilar’s emails said that “Governor DeSantis is always fighting back against Corrupt Left,”and another read “No matter how bad this country is the Fake News media and Biden Admin are OBSESSED with that [sic] Florida is doing. It is time to help America’s #1 Governor. Can we count on you to support DeSantis?” Other emails intimated they were from trump and said the former president was leaving WinRed because “I have been at War with Big Tech!”
“Chip in $5 to Help President Trump CRUSH his monthly goal!” it read.
A WinRed email noted that “This account intentionally misled people by pretending to be, among other groups, Donald Trump, Ron Desantis and Jim Jordan. WinRed won’t let that happen, so several months ago we took action by shutting it down.”