Former President Donald J. Trump on Monday responded to an investigation by the New York Times revealing that his reelection operation repaid more than 10 percent of what he had raised online – $ 122 million from $ 1.2 billion – and that a flood of refunds came after his campaign set up weekly recurring donations by default to online donors. Contributors had to clear a box to cancel, and the box became increasingly difficult to find as the financial difficulties of their campaign increased.
“Our fundraising efforts, working together with the Republican Party, have all been done legally,” Trump said in a statement.
The Times reported that many donors have unwittingly become recurring contributors to the Trump campaign because of pre-checked boxes. Retirees, military veterans, nurses and political agents were among those enmeshed. Many complained to their credit card companies and banks that they had been victims of fraud.
Records show that the Trump operation refunded 10.7% of what it collected in 2020 on the digital donation processing site WinRed, compared to a 2.2% refund rate for President Biden’s operation on ActBlue, the democratic platform.
Trump, who did not refute any of the article’s numbers, focused on a different number, arguing that his campaign’s “dispute rate” – the count of formal credit card complaints – was less than 1% of transactions. “A very low number,” he said.
That would still represent some 200,000 contested donations, which his campaign had previously said were worth $ 19.7 million.
The Trump campaign had previously refused to say whether the former president knew personally about the pre-verified cash scheme, and he did not speak of it in his statement. But he did not denounce the tactic.
“Before our two campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Republicans would always lose small donations in dollars,” said Trump in his statement. “Now we win, or we do very well, because we are the American Workers’ Party and we beat the Democrats at their own game. We learned from the liberal ActBlue – and now we are better than them! “