Donald Trump’s campaign announced on Friday that it had raised nearly $53 million through online small-dollar donations in the wake of his conviction in a New York hush money trial.
The campaign emphasized that the verdict had mobilized his supporters “like never before.”
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The campaign reported raising an equivalent of more than $2 million per hour.
Senior campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles noted that over a third of the donations came from new contributors, highlighting an “outpouring of support from patriots across our country.”
Labeling the Thursday court decision a “sham trial verdict,” the advisors revealed that the “digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support,” leading to temporary online delays due to the high volume of traffic from small-dollar donors.
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By Friday evening, the campaign’s total had reached $52.8 million.
A jury had convicted Trump on Thursday of all 34 charges related to falsifying business records to conceal a sex scandal during the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Prosecutors alleged that Trump had an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly after his wife Melania gave birth in 2006, later paying hush money to Daniels a decade later to avoid a scandal and mislead voters.
Trump then allegedly created false documentation to cover up the payment.
Trump is scheduled for sentencing on July 11 but is expected to appeal the verdict. Campaign advisors LaCivita and Wiles claimed that “Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats with their election interference political witch hunt have awakened the MAGA movement like never before.”
While President Joe Biden has refrained from commenting on the trial, there is no evidence that he or his administration was involved in the investigation, which was initiated by New York state authorities, not the federal government.
Trump has a history of leveraging scandal to his advantage, and his campaign website began redirecting visitors to a fundraising page declaring him a “political prisoner” shortly after his conviction.
The page crashed for about an hour due to a surge of support that overwhelmed WinRed, the official Republican Party donation platform.
Trump often portrays his legal battles as a fight against the “deep state” and Biden’s administration, casting himself as a martyr willing to sacrifice his freedom for his supporters.
In April, he compared himself to South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela for the second time and has also likened himself to Jesus Christ.
“WITCH HUNT! IF THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ME, IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE!” Trump posted on his platform Truth Social on Friday.
