Major Republican donors said on Thursday they were willing to back the first convicted felon running for U.S. president, with at least one giving money to Donald Trump for the first time, according to around a dozen benefactors and fundraisers.
Many conservative donors already viewed the New York hush money cash as political persecution, echoing the Republican presidential candidate’s claim that Democrats are trying to weaken him ahead of the Nov. 5 election against President Joe Biden. Prosecutors have dismissed those claims as untrue. A New York jury found Trump guilty on Thursday of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
The verdict has spurred some donors to boost their financial support for Trump – and, in at least one case, make a big donation to him for the first time.
Don Tapia, a former Trump ambassador to Jamaica, said he and a small network of family and friends with whom he donates had planned to give around $250,000 this election to support Trump.
After Thursday’s conviction, Tapia told Reuters the group would aim to give over $1 million to the pro-Trump spending group MAGA Inc in coming weeks.
“We’re going to go all-in for him,” said Tapia. He sent Reuters a photo of an American flag flying upside down outside his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona in protest to the verdict.
A Silicon Valley tech investor, Shaun Maguire, posted on social media site X after the verdict that he had donated $300,000 to support Trump.
“I believe our justice system is being weaponized against him,” said Maguire, who described himself as a former Hillary Clinton supporter who switched to supporting Trump in 2021 after Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maguire told Reuters he had not previously donated to Trump.
Robert Bigelow, who is one of Trump’s top supporters having given over $9 million to an outside group supporting 슬롯 him, said the verdict had no impact on him. “All of the charges are contrived,” Bigelow told Reuters.