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Donald Trump is already trying to turn his historic criminal conviction into a campaign cash windfall.
Moments after a jury handed down a guilty verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Trump’s campaign flipped his website to a verdict-themed fundraising funnel. Trump followed it up by putting out a siren on his Truth Social account calling himself a “POLITICAL PRISONER” and sending a fresh fundraising appeal to his list of supporters. And he is set to appeal to high rollers at a fundraiser in New York City tonight.
“I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!” read one post-verdict campaign fundraising email. “But with your support at this moment in history, WE WILL WIN BACK THE WHITE HOUSE AND MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The immediate fundraising push is the latest example of Trump using his legal misfortune for political and financial gain. And it could be the most lucrative yet. His campaign has repeatedly turned legal jeopardy into millions of dollars to fuel his potential return to the White House, with flashpoints of greater peril driving more cash to his coffers.
The opportunity to monetize the verdict comes as Trump’s campaign still has significantly less cash in his campaign account than President Joe Biden, even after putting up a stronger haul in April. At the end of last month, the former president’s campaign had $49 million compared to $84 million for the incumbent.
“With the verdict now I think you will have the grassroots absolutely unleashed. You will have those who have been supporters chipping in [more]. And those who have been staying on the sidelines will come off the sidelines to rally around what they view as a travesty of justice here,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration appointee.
He added: “While [Trump] was 34 counts guilty, you can probably expect $34 million might be pouring in.”
In the minutes after the verdict was read, Trump’s team redirected his campaign website straight to a fundraising page and blasted out text messages through the evening warning that “JUSTICE IS DEAD IN AMERICA” and directing supporters to the fundraising platform WinRed. His campaign also began running fundraising ads on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the verdict was handed down.
Advisers and allies including Stephen Miller and Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also took to social media to urge Trump’s backers to break open their wallets: “ALL MAJOR GOP DONORS ON THE SIDELINES GET OFF THE SIDELINES,” Miller posted on X. “DONATE BIG. DONATE NOW.”
Trump’s supporters appeared to heed his call. WinRed, the primary online donation platform for Trump and many other Republicans, went down briefly Thursday evening. Trump’s campaign website then directed donors to a second platform, Anedot, while one of his top advisers suggested donors try logging in again or subscribe to his text messaging list. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Shaun Maguire posted on X after the verdict was read that he had just donated $300,000 to Trump’s operation.
Trump has repeatedly made fundraising heyday out of his legal travails in the past.
He raised nearly $4 million on WinRed when he was indicted in the New York case more than a year ago, and then surpassed that daily total in August, when he had his mugshot taken after facing a new set of charges in Georgia. His campaign repeatedly sought to monetize the trial, attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, lamenting to supporters how he was missing time on the campaign trail and suggesting he had been silenced after Judge Juan Merchan fined him for repeatedly violating a gag order.
Republican operatives don’t believe Trump, now saddled with a criminal record and awaiting sentencing on July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention, will suffer politically. As the former president is about to officially become the GOP’s nominee for the third consecutive election, Trump “is going to wrap himself in the robe of a martyr,” said Jason Roe, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party.
“He is going to have more fire on the stump and probably even larger crowds at his rallies, and I think this is going to give him an incredible amount of momentum going forward,” Roe said.
Trump was far from the only Republican to immediately seek to capitalize on the verdict. A fundraising email from the National Republican Congressional Committee derided the “Soros-funded prosecutor” and “Kangaroo Court” that convicted Trump, before asking for donations that would be split between the party group and Trump’s joint fundraising committee.
The Republican National Committee also sent a fundraising email, under the name of RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, asking potential donors to “join me in praying for our country” and calling the conviction a “slap in the face.” That solicitation asked for donations to Trump’s joint fundraising committee, which also sends funds to the RNC.
Trump’s campaign on Thursday night also sent a blunt message to down ballot Republicans to not fundraise off the former president’s conviction, warning other GOP candidates not to siphon off money that could otherwise go to the Trump campaign.
“Any Republican elected official, candidate, or party committee siphoning money from President Trump’s donors are no better than Judge Merchan’s daughter,” said Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita. “We’re keeping a list, we’ll be checking it twice, and we aren’t in the spirit of Christmas.”
Democrats were fundraising off the verdict too — albeit with a different tone. The Biden campaign’s first post-verdict fundraising email echoed the campaign’s official response, and did not mention the verdict directly.
“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box,” the email said, before asking potential donors to make a contribution.
Other Democratic campaigns and party groups were more direct in their appeals: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a fundraising email with the subject line “Guilty.” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), one of Democrats’ key Senate candidates, told potential donors in a fundraising email: “Don’t let a convicted felon win in Arizona.”
And a fundraising email from Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who is running for an open Senate seat, warned that the verdict would likely “fire up his MAGA-base more than ever before.”
“We have already seen his legal issues result in an intense media and fundraising boon for him, and this moment will probably make those moments look small by comparison,” her campaign warned.
Meridith McGraw and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.
