Trump supporters allegedly involved in Capitol insurrection sent surge in donations after his electoral defeat

Extremist supporters of former President Donald Trump charged with storming the US Capitol building during the January 6 insurrection sent a surge of donations to his campaign in the weeks following his electoral defeat, according to a new report. 

The report, which assessed publicly available campaign finance filings, was published on Wednesday by NBC News. It found that hundreds of ardent Trump supporters sent the former president political donations after President Joe Biden was confirmed the victor of the 2020 elections.

Those supporters increased their financial donations to Mr Trump by nearly 75 per cent in the five weeks after he lost to Mr Biden, NBC News reported, compared to donations he received in the five weeks ahead of Election Day. 

Mr Trump and the political groups funding his re-election bid saw a massive spike in fundraising after the November election, as the former president continued to promote lies and conspiracy theories surrounding the national vote. 

He claimed there had been widespread voter fraud, even though such allegations had been repeatedly disproven and debunked by his own government agencies and federal courts across the country. And when the vast majority of his lawsuits were tossed out by judges — including by several he himself appointed — Mr Trump continued attacking the courts and claiming the entire system was rigged against him. 

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To be clear, there has been no indication of widespread voter fraud or vote count manipulation in the 2020 election which led to Mr Trump’s electoral defeat: in fact, the US Intelligence Community has instead found nefarious foreign actors were interfering in the elections in support of his candidacy. Still, the USIC concluded that no votes had been changed in the 2020 election. 

But the former president’s most loyal supporters appeared to buy into his falsities surrounding the national vote, as contributions reportedly spiked following his defeat among hundreds of individuals now charged in the Capitol insurrection. 

According to NBC News, one of those supporters made up to nearly 40 donations to Mr Trump and his supporting groups in the wake of the election, despite donating just once to the former president before November of last year. 

“Trump successfully convinced many of his followers that unless they acted, and acted fast, their very way of life was about to come to an end,” James Horgan, head of the Georgia State University’s Violent Extremism Research Group, told the news outlet. “He presented a catastrophic scenario whereby if the election was — for him — lost, his followers would suffer as a result. He made action not just imperative, but urgent, convincing his followers that they needed to do everything they could now, rather than later, to prevent the ‘enemy’ from claiming victory.”

In total, the former president saw over $200 million in political contributions following his electoral defeat last year.

In a March court filing, the US government described its wide-ranging probe into the Capitol insurrection as “the most complex investigation ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.” At least 400 people have since been charged in criminal cases connected to the riots, according to federal prosecutors, while the FBI has received over 270,000 digital media tips.