Trump Is Already Fundraising Off Impeachment

His campaign’s appeal to donors includes a number of dubious claims.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

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Donald Trump’s reelection campaign wasted no time trying to capitalize on the Democratic push for impeachment, blasting out a fundraising email Tuesday afternoon urging supporters to help defend the president by donating to his campaign. The email contained several dubious promises, including the claim that immediate contributions would result in donors being added to an “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.” The email also stated that donations would be “double matched”—which is unlikely to be true, due to federal campaign finance laws that impose strict limits on political donations.

The number of Democrats calling for impeachment has risen gradually over the summer, but as recently as last week this step was still opposed by the Democratic Party leadership. Following revelations that Trump pressed Ukraine’s president to investigate discredited allegations against Joe Biden and withheld military aid from the country to ramp up pressure, dozens of Democratic lawmakers joined the call to begin impeachment proceedings. Ahead of a 5 p.m. press conference Tuesday afternoon, at which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to publicly call for an impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign fired off its fundraising pitch:

These Impeachment claims have nothing to do with the President – the Democrats thrive on silencing and intimidating his supporters, like YOU. They want to take YOUR VOTE away.

We won’t stand for this any longer, and neither should YOU. Which is why President Trump is launching the Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.

This task force will be made up of only President Trump’s most LOYAL supporters, the ones committed to fighting for him, re-electing him, and taking back the House.

The email also suggested that by donating to the campaign supporters would be defending the very integrity of America:

As a member of the Official Impeachment Defense Task Force, you will be a leader in defending the President against these baseless and disgusting attacks. You will be responsible for defending American Greatness.

The future of American freedom rests on the shoulders of men and women willing to defend it from these hateful attacks, and today is a day for action.

The fundraising appeal claimed that Trump had personally requested to see a list of people who had joined his “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force” and urged donors to send their money before 3:30 p.m., when the list would supposedly be sent to the president. Shortly after the deadline passed, Trump’s campaign sent a nearly identical email, this one saying the deadline was 4 p.m.

Campaigns have fairly wide latitude to make promises in campaign fundraising emails, so Team Trump’s claims of an official “Task Force” or that Trump would personally review the names of donors don’t have to be true. Another suspect claim: the email’s pledge that donations would be “double-matched.” 

Donor match programs are common in the nonprofit fundraising world and are considered to be highly effective in encouraging donors who might be on the fence about giving. In the nonprofit world, a match program typically involves a one or several particularly generous donors, who are poised to write big checks if smaller donors start giving. However, in the political sphere, federal campaign finance laws make things a little more complicated, since individual donors are legally capped at giving no more than $5,400 to a campaign per election cycle. That means a single generous donor can’t match new small donations. If a campaign wants to raise money on any large scale, even a handful of generous matching donors won’t work—hundreds or thousands would be necessary. It’s unlikely that would really happen

The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about its “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force,” how many donors had joined, or how it planned to “double-match” their contributions. 


Listen to Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn explain what happens next, in this special impeachment edition of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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