Convicted Felon Cons Gullible Americans Out of $35 Million - WhoWhatWhy Convicted Felon Cons Gullible Americans Out of $35 Million - WhoWhatWhy

Donald Trump, arms up, Keep America Great, rally, Phoenix, AZ
Donald Trump speaking at a “Keep America Great” rally at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, AZ. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

While he probably would have preferred not to be a convicted felon, Donald Trump made the best of the situation by raising millions of dollars from gullible supporters.

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Convicted felon Donald Trump has shattered single-day online fundraising records in the hours after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to hide the hush money payment he made to an adult film star with whom he had a brief affair while his third wife was pregnant, his campaign announced Friday (Editor’s Note: To be clear, his campaign didn’t reference the part about the porn star and how Trump cheated on his wife; that’s just what happened).

The former president raised nearly $35 million dollars from “small money donors,” which is what the Trump campaign calls the gullible fools who think that the candidate, a self-proclaimed billionaire, needs their $10.

In a way, it might be more apt to call these donations an “additional Fox News cable fee,” because, without the right-wing propaganda outlet shilling for the former president, they might already have realized that he is a crook (which the verdict made official) and con man.

“From just minutes after the sham trial verdict was announced, our digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support, and despite temporary delays online because of the amount of traffic, President Trump raised $34.8 million dollars from small dollar donors,” Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, senior advisers to the Trump campaign, announced in an email, which also stated that nearly one-third of the donations came from new donors.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from [sic] this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” they added. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

However, as it turns out, Thursday’s verdict is also quite real.

This new windfall comes at a great time for Trump because it will allow him to continue to spend tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and other legal expenses. We are literally talking about close to $100 million that have flown from the checking accounts of regular Americans into the pockets of wealthy lawyers fighting to keep Trump out of jail for the various crimes he is alleged to have committed. 

Obviously, the former president wouldn’t be a world-class grifter if he also didn’t take his cut.

While he has failed in some of his other business ventures, Trump has proven to be quite adept at converting taxpayer funds or donations into cold hard cash for himself. 

For example, he holds events at his own properties and then uses campaign funds to pay for them. In addition, he is overcharging the US government for housing the Secret Service agents who are paid to risk their own lives for him.

Since declaring his first run for president in 2015, Trump has managed to funnel millions of dollars into his own bank accounts… and there is clearly no end in sight as long as there are enough marks left in the country willing to shovel their own money into his pockets.

Author

  • Klaus Marre

    Klaus Marre is a senior editor for Politics and director of the Mentor Apprentice Program at WhoWhatWhy. Follow him on Bluesky @unravelingpolitics.bsky.social.

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