A GoFundMe Page called “We Build the Wall” has managed to raise well over $22 million from hundreds of thousands of donors over the past five months.
Run by an anti-immigration, triple-amputee, Iraq War veteran named Brian Kolfage, the GoFundMe page promises to build segments of President Donald Trump’s “wall” on private land along the southern U.S. border “for a fraction of what it costs the government.” The page received nearly $13 million in just five days after it was launched late last year.
One snag, though, is that to date, there is no sign of any groundbreaking having occurred on the project, despite promises by Kolfage that it would start in late April.
Now, some donors are beginning to grow concerned that perhaps they were duped. The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer reported on donor concerns on Friday.
“Since We Build the Wall blew their April deadline, Twitter replies to Kolfage and the group’s Facebook page have filled up with angry donors,” Sommer wrote.
One reason public confidence was built around the page is that well-known pro-Trump conservatives signed onto the project, including former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon.
Last January, Kolfage told The New York Times the group had secured land from landowners, and that it would begin breaking ground “within weeks.” But like most details of the project, Kolfage has kept his plans shrouded in secrecy.
According to Sommer, Kolfage said in March that he couldn’t reveal locations where the wall would be built because of the American Civil Liberties Union and “these other liberal groups that want to sue and impede our progress.”
But last December, BuzzFeed News reported that Kolfage “has an extensive history of creating and profiting from fake, inflammatory news and conspiracy theories.”
Per BuzzFeed:
The websites’ headlines often screamed about how Muslims were raping and harming innocent women, children, and service members; how Hillary Clinton was hiding deathly illnesses; and how billionaire Democratic donor George Soros was funding domestic terrorists. Stories like “Obama’s Pedophile Secret OUT After Department Of Defense Releases Startling Memo To Public” would often appear on multiple sites and Facebook pages, spreading them to a wider audience.
Yikes.
On Saturday, Kolfage posted a message on the group’s Facebook page stating, “there’s no update because we are remaining silent for a very good reason. You will all have the best present very soon.”
He claimed to be “working with many congressmen and senators to help us mitigate these issues from the left wing attack groups.”
Kolfage added that details of the project are “on a need to know basis.”
Good to know.