Jan. 6 Committee Confirms ‘Big Lie’ Was Also a ‘Big Ripoff’ of Trump Donors

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection on Monday detailed how the Trump campaign blatantly deceived the former president’s supporters by using the “Big Lie” of a stolen election to bilk hundreds of millions out of them in a massive fundraising blitz.

Amanda Wick, senior investigative counsel for the committee, said in a video presented on the second day of hearings that the campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to supporters in the weeks after the election, “sometimes as many as 25 a day.”

Those emails, imploring voters to “step up” and help protect election integrity and to “fight back” against the “left-wing mob,” garnered $250 million before the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including nearly $100 million in the first week after the election.

“The Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false,” said Wick, “yet they continued to barrage small-dollar donors with emails encouraging them to donate to something called the Official Election Defense Fund.”

Instead of funding the former president’s legal battle, Wick explained, millions of dollars went to benefit Trump’s allies and associates, including:

• $1 million to a charitable foundation run by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows;
• $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, which employs seven former Trump administration officials;
• $5 million to Event Strategies, Inc., which organized the January 6 rally that devolved into the violent riot later that day; and
• More than 200,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection.

The money was funneled to those organizations through the Save America PAC, a political action committee that Trump established on November 9, 2020—two days after President Joe Biden was announced the winner of the election.

“Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election litigation,” said Wick.

The hearing showed, said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, that “Trump is a con man and a grifter.”

“Throughout the committee’s investigation,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), “we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for. So not only was there that big lie, there was the big rip-off.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Julia Conley.