Flood of traffic crashes Trump's donation website after hush money conviction
Within an hour of Donald Trump's historic criminal conviction, the former president and Republican frontrunner's website accepting campaign donations crashed.
Trump was quick to turn the verdict into a fundraising opportunity after a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 felony counts tied to falsifying business records as part of a plan to influence the 2016 presidential election. His 2024 campaign sent out several messages to supporters asking for donations referring to the presumptive Republican nominee as a "political prisoner" and with the tagline "never surrender."
"I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!" Trump wrote. "My end-of-month fundraising deadline is just DAYS AWAY! So at this dark hour, I’m humbly asking for you to PLEASE stand with me now."
The Trump campaign reported Friday it had raised $34.8 million dollars from small dollar donors following his conviction.
More: 'Speechless': Swing state voters react to Donald Trump's guilty verdict
As Google searches for "Trump donation site" and other related terms spiked following his conviction, the WinRed donation platform used by his and other Republicans' campaigns experienced an outage.
Trump's reelection campaign called the case "Crooked Joe Biden's rigged show trial" in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Despite Trump's repeated claims that his opponent in the presidential election rigged the trial, the case was brought by New York prosecutors and not directed by the Biden administration.
"So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump's campaign that the WinRed pages went down," Trump's campaign wrote. "We are working on getting the website back online as quickly as possible. Stay strong."
About an hour after the outage, the Trump campaign confirmed the website was back online.
Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, as @rachelbarber_
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump donation website crashes amid flood of traffic after verdict