American veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and triple amputee Brian Kolfage launched a GoFundMe on December 16th to raise money to build President Donald Trump’s promised border wall. That GoFundMe has raised nearly $6 million in just four short days.
On the GoFundMe page Kolfage explains why he launched project:
“As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today. Too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of the United States taxpayers with no means of ever contributing to our society.”
He adds:
“I have grandparents who immigrated to America legally, they did it the correct way and it’s time we uphold our laws, and get this wall BUILT!It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling.”
While the current goal for the GoFundMe stands at $1 billion, Kolfage believes that he can raise $5 billion to fully fund the wall.
“‘If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.’ That equates to roughly 5Billion Dollars, even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.”
Kolfage does note there will be roadblocks, namely from Democrats who he believes will try “to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn’t get his victor (sp?)”
But the Democrats aren’t the only ones who will put up roadblocks. Kolfage has already faced a roadblock from GoFundMe! The crowdfunding platform allegedly removed the campaign from their top list.
Kolfage wrote to backers and supporters of the campaign:
“GoFundMe removed our Trump Wall campaign from their top list. We are the top fundraiser right now and they removed it from the list. We were front and center on their homepage. Do they not want us to succeed?
Why are they suppressing us? Just like Facebook & Twitter have done, now GoFundme?”
And he’s not joking about Facebook. Kolfage was on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show discussing his claims that Facebook blacklisted him and deleted his conservative news page after investing over $300,000 on ads.
He does note that GoFundMe did not stop the campaign from fundraising, they’ve just made it more difficult for people to find the campaign. Fortunately, the winds seemed to change after Kolfage brought attention to GoFundMe’s alleged censorship. He reported the crowdfunding platform returned the campaign back to their top trending campaign.
In case people are skeptical if their money will go to the wall or not, Kolfage reassures would-be backers of the project, “100% of your donations will go to the Trump Wall.”
He also indicates he is “working with a law firm on a legal document that will bind the government to using the funds for the border wall itself, nothing else.” He even declares, “We will hold all funds and not release a single penny until we have all legal aspects covered to ensure our money goes only to the wall.”
Kolfage also indicates that funds will be able to be transferred to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, through government savings bonds. He states this will be possible through legislation that Republican Representative Steven Palazzo of Mississippi will introduce.
As of this writing, the GoFundMe has raised $5,841,044 from 96,102 people.
Do you plan on donating? What do you think of Brian Kolfage’s idea of crowdfunding the wall? Do you think crowdfunding could fund other functions of government in place of income taxes?