Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Trump campaign advisor and Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, was paid $60,000 by former President Donald Trump’s “official election defense fund” for a two-and-a-half minute introductory speech she made at his January 6, 2021, rally at the Ellipse in Washington.
“We know that Guilfoyle was paid for the introduction she gave at the speech on January 6. She received compensation for that,” Lofgren told CNN. “$60,000 for two-and-a-half minutes.”
After the November 3, 2020 election, the Trump campaign called on supporters to donate to an “official election defense fund” that it claimed would help Trump’s team pursue legal challenges to overturn the election results. Financial disclosures showed that Trump raised more than $250 million in the two months after Election Day. Lofgren on Monday said that the committee learned that most of this money went to Trump’s newly created PAC, Save America, and other pro-Trump groups and allies, including Guilfoyle.
Lofgren said that she’s not saying it was a crime, but that it was a grift.
Where did a quarter of a billion dollars go?
“That they got grifted by this fundraising appeal that was going out several times a day to raise money for battles in courts that didn’t happen, and also you showed people deceived, talking about why they were there on Jan. 6,” he said.
“Well, people were conned by the former president,” Lofgren said. “They were conned into believing that the election had been stolen and that they should go to the Capitol, as the president asked them to.”
“I think the average donation from those email — false email requests was something like $17. These were people that weren’t rich people. They were conned by the president whose was a Big Lie was also a Big Rip-Off,” she added.
