One of the bigger revelations during the Monday House hearing about the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is that the scope of the House committee’s investigation had grown beyond Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. We learned on Monday that they also have evidence that Trump used his coup as a means for financial fraud.
During the entire two and a half months between Election Day and Jan. 6, Trump was shaking down his gullible supporters for cash that he claimed would help fight “election fraud.” Those funds, however, largely appeared to go into the pockets of Trump and his allies.
“The big lie was also a big ripoff,” declared Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., during her opening remarks on Monday. She argued that the campaign used “false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts.” In reality, however, most the money — which is estimated to be a cool $250 million — went into a super PAC. From there, it was redirected into the coffers of Trump himself and towards various friends and family members.
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In response to these revelations, there’s been a standard response from the anti-Trump majority: Couldn’t have happened to nicer people.
Salon started covering the way Trump uses the Big Lie to grift his followers mere days…
