Why it matters that Trump’s ‘Election Defense Fund’ didn’t exist – By Steve Benen (MSNBC) / June 13, 2022
After his defeat, Donald Trump urged his supporters to contribute to an Election Defense Fund. The trouble is, there was no actual Election Defense Fund.
Among Donald Trump’s worst qualities is the frequency with which the former president has tried to rip off those who’ve put their trust in him. Indeed, the Republican developed some expertise in this area, running both a fraudulent charitable foundation and a fraudulent “university” that was designed to rip off its “students.”
All of this came to mind this morning, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack held its second hearing, which covered a lot of ground, including a review of how Trump and his team used their election lies to separate the then-president’s followers from their money. NBC News reported:
Committee investigators also traced the money Trump and his allies raised from small donors by stoking election fraud fears, which they said totaled more than $250 million. And while the money was billed as going to “The Official Election Defense Fund,” two Trump campaign staffers testified that the fund did not actually exist and was just a “marketing” tactic.
As one former Trump campaign staffer told the bipartisan congressional committee, “I don’t believe there is actually a fund called the ‘Election Defense Fund.'”
