Soooo if you donated any of your hard-earned money to that GoFundMe for the border wall, you’ll be glad to know it raised $20 million of its billion dollar goal.
Unfortunately, it has now been torn down and the donations will be returned:
GoFundMe said Friday that it would refund $20 million raised by more than 300,000 donors for President Trump’s border wall after an account aiming to raise $1 billion for the wall changed part of its campaign.
Brian Kolfage, the veteran who created the account last month, originally pledged that “every single penny” would be refunded if the original goal had not been met. He updated the page on Friday, saying that the federal government would not be able to accept the $20 million soon.
So… instead of giving the money to Trump, they’re going to continue collecting money, and.. build the wall themselves? Huh?
While Kolfage said money donated to the original campaign would go to the government to fund a border wall, he wrote Friday that he has since formed a nonprofit corporation in Florida named “We Build the Wall, Inc.” to receive the GoFundMe contributions.
“We are better equipped than our own government to use the donated funds to build an actual wall on the southern border,” Kolfage wrote. “Our highly experienced team is highly confident that we can complete significant segments of the wall in less time, and for far less money, than the federal government, while meeting or exceeding all required regulatory, engineering, and environmental specifications.”
The page now states that the funds raised will be used “in the execution of our mission and purpose” for his new created nonprofit.
Uh OK. SO GoFundMe knocked it down because Kolfage changed the terms of the campaign. But it might have also been because of certain reports that have come out against Kolfage:
Reports of Kolfage’s past business ventures started surfacing as the campaign gained national attention, including his alleged history of running sites that promoted conspiracy theories and racist content.
A recent business venture, Right Wing News, was reportedly removed from Facebook in October when the social media giant scrubbed roughly 500 pages it said used fake accounts “to drive traffic to their websites” or “were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.”
A BuzzFeed News investigation published Thursday found that Kolfage allegedly pocketed money donated to a previous GoFundMe account he started for wounded veterans.
Whithorne confirmed to BuzzFeed that Kolfage in 2015 launched a GoFundMe that raised $16,246 under the premise that the money would go to a veteran mentorship program. Whitorne said the money went directly to Kolfage.
Yeah I’m thinking there’s as much chance of this as Mexico paying for the wall. Be careful where you donate your money to, folks.