The 330,000 people who donated roughly $20 million to a crowdfunding campaign to fund the construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border now have the option to get a refund after the GoFundMe page creator changed the terms of the fundraiser.
Veteran Brian Kolfage, who created the campaign, wrote in a post Friday that he was unable to reach his $1 billion goal to build a barrier at the southern border.
“However, that did not happen,” GoFundMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne told BuzzFeed News. “This means all donors will receive a refund.”
Donors will instead have the option of redirecting their gifts to the We Build the Wall, Inc., a private, not-for-profit social welfare organization.
“Heartened by the overwhelming support of fellow Americans who have donated over $20 million to the viral GoFundMe campaign ‘We the People Will Fund the Wall,’ war hero and triple-amputee veteran Brian Kolfage announced the launch of a 501(c)4 called ‘We Build the Wall, Inc.’ which will fund the private construction of a wall along the United States’ Southern Border,” the organization wrote in a press release.
Because Kolfage changed the terms of the campaign, GoFundMe will refund all donors unless they choose to forward their donation to the organization.
Kolfage said he came up with the idea because he was frustrated with the government’s failure to move on the president’s campaign promise to enhance security at the southern border.
“We are grateful for the President’s steadfast commitment to border security, the single most important issue plaguing our country,” said Kolfage. “Rather than subsidizing the federal government, which has betrayed the American people by obstructing President Donald Trump’s agenda, ‘We Build the Wall’ is taking the President’s signature campaign promise into our own hands.”
He vowed not to take “a penny” from the organization.
Kolfage tweeted Friday night that this change of plans had been in the works for weeks. In mid-December when he launched the campaign, he said his intent was to raise money and give it to the government.
We are building the wall mile by mile for half the cost of what the government pays!
It’s happening! This has been planned for weeks!
IF you want your donation to count to our new mission you need to opt in here: https://t.co/sWaTOtc324@DeplorableChoir @RyanAFournier
— Brian Kolfage (@BrianKolfage) January 11, 2019
The new organization also announced its board of directors on Friday , which includes Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, and former Rep. Tom Tancredo.
Trump in January asked for $25 billion from Congress to fund a variety of border security projects, including infrastructure, technology, and additional personnel. The White House is currently in a stalemate with congressional Democrats for $5.7 billion of funding in the Department of Homeland Security’s fiscal 2019 appropriations that has led to a partial government shutdown.
Kolfage had vowed to return everyone’s money if they could not reach $1 billion.
He said donors should rest assured the page was not a scam. However, Kolfage’s history on social media was called into question by an NBC News report that showed he had pushed conspiracy theories on several Facebook pages and personally operates news websites.
One page, Right Wing News, was taken down by Facebook. Kolfage then created Fight4FreeSpeech.
Another one of Kolfage’s sites, FreedomDaily, was sued by a Michigan man after it reported the wrong man’s name as the driver of a car that struck a group of people at the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017.
He told NBC he did not mention his issues with Facebook or the lawsuit on the crowdfunding page because his “personal issues have nothing to do with building the wall.”
