In This Story
Less than an hour after former president Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York, his presidential campaign’s fundraising website crashed due to heavy traffic.
“So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down,” Trump’s campaign wrote in a 5:50 p.m. ET post on X. “We are working on getting the website back online as quickly as possible. Stay strong.”
The former president — who has repeatedly bashed the premise and verdict of the trial — sent supporters several messages linking back to donation pages after the trial came to a close. His fundraising website currently features a photo of his mugshot and calls for “TEN MILLION pro-Trump patriots” to contribute money. He also attended a fundraiser in New York after the verdict, CNBC reports, before returning to Trump Tower Thursday night.
He was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over reimbursements for a “hush money” payment that his attorney, Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. It’s the first time in U.S. history that a president has been convicted as a felon.
The conviction won a massive swath of support from his legion of fans and won over some hefty donations. Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said he donated $300,000 to Trump and his affiliates in response to the verdict. Former New York Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin said he secured an $800,000 donation to Trump’s joint fundraising committee.
Overall, the campaign says it raised $34.8 million on Thursday, according to a statement reported by The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo. That’s “nearly double” the largest amount raised by the Trump campaign on the WinRed fundraising platform.
“[D]espite temporary delays online because of the amount of traffic, President Trump raised $34.8 million from small dollar donors,” the campaign said in a statement attributed to senior advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. “Not only was the amount historic, but 29.7% of yesterday’s donor[s] were brand new donors to the WinRed platform.
The verdict also caused shares of shares of Trump Media & Technology Group to fall by as much as 15% Thursday, before see-sawing. The stock is up 12% this week, despite falling 4% in trading Friday morning.
Trump is by far the largest owner of Trump Media stock, holding 64.9% of outstanding shares, up from 57.6% in March. His net worth is down $365 million, or more than 4%, to $7.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Last week, the company reported a loss before income taxes of $327.6 million in the first quarter of the year, for a net loss of $3.61 per share attributable to shareholders, according to regulatory filings. Revenue also plunged year-over-year from $1.12 million to to $770,500 for the three-month period ending in March.
—Rocio Fabbro contributed to this story.