Gary or Kevin kind of directed us to stop sending fundraising messages out."[224] Cannon stated, "[O]n January 6th, Gary called me and said, [']are you seeing what's happening? I'm obviously turning everything off.[']"[225]
After raising $250 million dollars on false voter fraud claims, mostly from small-dollar donors, President Trump did not spend it on fighting an election he knew he lost. Instead, a significant portion of the money was deposited into the Save America account and not used for the purposes the Campaign claimed it would be. President Trump got a war chest with millions of dollars, and the American people were left with the U.S. Capitol under attack.
There is evidence suggesting that numerous defendants charged with violations related to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and others present on the Capitol grounds that day were motivated by false claims about the election.[226]
Further, J. Doe, the Salesforce employee interviewed by the Select Committee, provided insight into the action that Salesforce took after the attack. Doe explained that after they became aware of the ongoing attack, they (Doe) took unilateral action to block the RNC's ability to send emails through Salesforce's platform.[227] Doe noted that the shutdown lasted until January 11, 2021, when senior Salesforce leadership directed Doe to remove the block from RNC's Salesforce account.[228] Doe stated that Salesforce leadership told Doe that Salesforce would now begin reviewing RNC's email campaigns to "make sure this doesn't happen again."[229]
CONCLUSION
In the weeks after the 2020 election leading up to January 6, 2021, President Trump's Campaign and his allies sent his supporters a barrage of emails and text messages pushing lies about a stolen election and asking for contributions to challenge the outcome of the election. In reality, the funds raised went primarily towards paying down the Trump Campaign's outstanding 2020 debt, financing President Trump's newly created Save America PAC, and raising money for the RNC.
Overall, only a small amount of the contributions ever went to President Trump's recount account or were otherwise obviously used in connection with post-election recounts or litigation. As President Trump used the Big Lie as a weapon to attack the legitimacy of the 2020 election, his Campaign used that same Big Lie to raise millions of dollars based on false claims and unkept promises.
Not only did President Trump lie to his supporters about the election, but he also ripped them off.
