The donation page for former president Donald Trump crashed Thursday night immediately after he was convicted on all counts in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial.
WinRed, the official GOP donation platform, failed to load or displayed an error message moments after the verdict was read, likely due to an overload of traffic to the website.
“Under Maintenance,” the site read after clicking to contribute to Trump’s campaign. “Our engineers are working to provide you with a better experience. We will back shortly.”
A flood of social-media users commented that they had donated significant sums to Trump’s campaign following the guilty verdict in the case.
After about 6:30 EST, the page was restored, reading: “The Left thinks that if they bury me with enough witch hunts and intimidate my family and associates that I’ll eventually throw up my hands and give up on our America First movement. Let me be clear as possible: I will never stop fighting for you!”
Trump’s team also updated his website to reflect the court outcome.
“I’M A POLITICAL PRISONER!,” the site reads. “I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG! They’ve raided my home, arrested me, took my mugshot, AND NOW THEY’VE JUST CONVICTED ME! Crooked Joe Biden needs to get the message – right here, right now – that his chances of a 2nd term END TODAY!”
Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita urged potential donors to “log back on and try again” if they encountered an error message.
The former president has successfully used his many legal issues to fundraise for his 2024 campaign. His campaign received millions in donations last year after releasing the mugshot taken of the former president when he was indicted in Georgia for election interference.
The Biden campaign also made a fundraising appeal based on Trump’s conviction Thursday evening, reminding supporters “there’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.”
A New York jury on Thursday night convicted Trump on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records. He is the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
Over the past six weeks at the state courthouse in lower Manhattan, the prosecution tried to prove that Trump, his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker engaged in a conspiracy to defraud voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election by paying off women to hide the then-presidential candidate’s extra-marital sexual affair with a porn star. The prosecution alleged that Trump failed to properly record those payments as campaign-finance expenses.
Merchan set the sentencing hearing for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention begins. Trump faces up to four years in prison, though most legal observers agree that he will more than likely be placed on probation. Merchan will be able to dictate the terms of Trump’s sentence, and his decision could have a major impact on Trump’s ability to campaign.