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How Crowdfunding Finances Right-Wing Extremist And Hate Groups

How Crowdfunding Finances Right-Wing Extremist And Hate Groups

The American right is so awash in grifters weaseling every dollar they can out of their gullibly authoritarian followers’ bank accounts that what used to be a political orientation has just become a massive network of scam artists. Whether it’s Donald Trump ripping off his hordes of fans with bogus email appeals, the “MyPillow” guy and his MAGA cohorts pushing election denialism, Alex Jones and his Infowars operation reeling in the suckers with his health claims, Chris Rufo pitching “critical race theory” and “groomer” rhetoric to the eager media, or white nationalist Nick Fuentes setting up shop in a pricey Chicago suburb thanks to his eager donors, it’s just one big race to suck up those donor dollars.

Crowdfunding at platforms like GoFundMe has become an essential tool for right-wing grifters, notably people like the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who use pleas for legal assistance to suck up thousands of dollars in donations. The Anti-Defamation League this week released a report showing that extremist crowdfunders have generated at least $6,246,072 from 324 campaigns over the past six years—and that their preferred platform by far is GiveSendGo, the conservative “free speech” outfit with a high tolerance for extremism.

Examining the financial records of extremist groups, ADL researchers found that GiveSendGo hosted 230 campaigns “operated by or for extremists and their causes. These campaigns collected more than 86.5% of the funds tracked by the Center on Extremism.”

It also found that crowdfunding campaigns “played a significant role in the January 6 insurrection and Unite the Right rally, as well as other, smaller extremist events.”

As Will Carless at USA Todayexplained, the ADL report examined a broad range of extremist groups, but focused particularly on the insurrectionists like Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and extremist Black Hebrew Israelites, some of whom expound racist and antisemitic beliefs. Among those groups, the ADL found that $4.75 million has been raised for insurrection-related causes through crowdfunding over the past four years.

Although the majority of the crowdfunding campaigns tracked by the ADL raised relatively small amounts—hundreds or low thousands of dollars—a number have also raised much larger amounts, including hundreds of thousands. The money these groups made through crowdfunding provided for travel and supplies, as well as legal and medical expenses.

“White supremacists have used crowdfunding to enable a range of hateful activities, including harassing marginalized communities, covering legal expenses after violent actions, spreading hateful propaganda and purchasing property and supplies for white ‘ethnostates’ or compounds,” the report says.

Center for Extremism investigator Mark Dwyer told Carless that his team began to focus on crowdfunding after observing a significant increase in online fundraising following the January 6 insurrection.

"I would consider this to be the heyday of extremist funding," Dwyer said.

As Carless reports, the ADL also found a number of campaigns with more explicitly hateful and extremist causes, featuring names like "GoyFundMe" and "Hatreon." However, the ADL says these were relatively short-lived sites.

GiveSendGo, notably, took steps following the Jan. 6 insurrection to cut down on extremist fundraising, banning campaigns to raise funds for travel to political events that have a "risk for violence." This, however, simply meant that GiveSendGo became the go-to crowdfunding site—along with a handful of others—for extremists and their supporters.

The report explains:

GiveSendGo was founded in 2015 as a self-described Christian crowdfunding service, and the company has taken stances against “censorship,” providing a platform for campaigns that the “mainstream media had shut down.” Perhaps because of this laissez-faire moderation policy, GiveSendGo quickly became the platform of choice for extremists and conspiracy theorists seeking to raise funds. Since 2016, using Stripe as their payment processor, the platform has facilitated the donation of $5.4 million to extremist-related causes, 86.5% of the total cataloged in this report, and it has been a significant source of fundraising for January 6 defendants’ legal funds.

As an example of how GiveSendGo is providing financial support for extremists, the ADL points to the case of Whidbey Island, Washington, resident Tyler Dinsmoor, who was arrested in June 2022 for threatening his LGBTQ neighbors and issuing threats against an upcoming Pride event in the nearby town of Anacortes. It soon emerged that Dinsmoor’s radicalization was a product of an evangelical church he attends that preaches that homosexuality is a capital crime—namely, Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Vancouver, Washington, which is led by Pastor Aaron Thompson. Sure Foundation is part of the New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) network, a rabidly anti-LGBTQ Baptist offshoot founded by hate preacher Steven Anderson.

Dinsmoor’s bail was initially set at $1 million, which drew cries of outrage from anti-LGBTQ extremists. It was later reduced by a judge to $150,000, and Dinsmoor was released on bail. Nonetheless, two GiveSendGo campaigns were established to help cover his legal expenses: The first, set up by an associate of Dinsmoor’s, collected $30,650; the second was created by Dinsmoor himself when he discontinued the initial campaign. So far, it has collected $4,000.

As Talia Lavin explained in her expose of the site in The Nation, “on GiveSendGo, hate groups can prosper amid fundraising campaigns for homeless nuns, a church that provides tube socks for the unhoused, or infants with spinal cord injuries. Any backlash by payment companies risks raising the ire of a grievance-drunk right-wing media ecosystem primed to detect the traces of anti-Christian prejudice.”

“GiveSendGo seems to be one of the most significant spaces in which alt-right and Christian right converge,” researcher Chrissy Stroop told Lavin. “Of course, we know there is considerable overlap in ideology between right-wing Christians, white nationalists, the manosphere, 4chan types, etc. It can be difficult to trace the direct connections and networks, so I think the existence of GiveSendGo provides us with a sort of horrifying laboratory in that regard.”

"Crowdfunding is a financial lifeline for various extremists," Segal said. "Major servicers like GoFundMe and GiveSendGo have a responsibility to enforce their terms of service and stop the exploitation of their platforms by people and groups that traffic in bigotry and violence."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

U.S. Seized Benghazi Suspect During Fierce Fighting Between Libyan Militias

U.S. Seized Benghazi Suspect During Fierce Fighting Between Libyan Militias

By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military seized a Libyan extremist accused in the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on Sunday as the terror group he once led was locked in fierce combat with forces loyal to a renegade Libyan general who once lived in the United States.

Knowledgeable officials said the arrest of Ahmed Abu Khattala had not been coordinated with forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a longtime Virginia resident who has been conducting a campaign to rid Benghazi of Ansar al Shariah. But the fighting proved to be a distraction that the Americans were able to take advantage of as they executed a long planned operation to seize Khatalla. The officials spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

At least 57 people were killed and 72 wounded in the Sunday battle between Khattala’s Ansar al Shariah and Hifter’s forces, according to an account of the fighting published by the Libyan Herald, an English-language website based in Tripoli, Libya’s capital.

Since the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Khattala had remained a prominent player in Ansar al Shariah. He was part of a delegation 10 days ago that sought to open reconciliation talks with Hifter and his forces, according to the Herald. Those talks failed, the news site reported.

Hifter lived in northern Virginia for more than two decades after he defected from Moammar Gadhafi’s army in the 1980s. He returned to Libya in 2011 and has remained there since. While his campaign against Ansar al Shariah has been denounced by Libya’s government, it’s received support from key parts of the Libyan armed forces, including the air force.

U.S. officials declined Tuesday to reveal where precisely Khattala was captured but it was apparently not at his home in the al Laithi district of Benghazi. Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said he was arrested near Benghazi and that no civilians had been injured in the action.

All Americans involved in the capture left Libya safely, Kirby said, and Khattala is on his way to the United States, where he faces criminal charges filed in federal court in Washington. Libyan authorities apparently were not told in advance of the operation and did not take part in Khattala’s capture, U.S. officials said. It was not clear whether Libyan authorities had learned that Khattala had been snatched before news broke of his arrest on Tuesday.

Khattala’s seizure marks the first time U.S. forces have detained any of the scores of suspects in the September 2012 attacks, which have been the source of congressional investigations and angry recriminations.

Khattala was in “U.S. custody in a secure location,” Kirby said. A criminal complaint filed last July but unsealed only Tuesday charges him with three crimes, including “killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility.”

An audience at the TechShop in Pittsburgh, Pa., burst into applause as President Barack Obama veered from his prepared remarks on manufacturing to hail Khattala’s capture.

“It’s important for us to send a message to the world that when Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those responsible and we will bring them to justice,” Obama said at the start of a speech on manufacturing. “That’s the message I said the day after it happened and regardless how long it takes, we will find you. I want to make sure everyone around the world hears that message very clearly.”

Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that Khattala might face additional charges and that other attackers might be prosecuted.

“Our nation’s memory is long and our reach is far,” Holder said. “The arrest of Ahmed Abu Khattala represents a significant milestone in our efforts to ensure justice is served for the heinous and cowardly attack on our facilities in Benghazi.”

The decision, however, to try Khattala in a civilian court immediately created more controversy over Obama’s plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center for terrorism suspects. Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., demanded that he be sent to Guantanamo and treated as an “enemy combatant.”

Rubio’s statement said intelligence could be best gathered by questioning Khattala at Guantanamo. “In order to locate all individuals associated with the attacks that led to the deaths of four Americans, we need intelligence,” Rubio said. “That intelligence is often obtained through an interrogation process.”

But Democrats said Khattala’s case would be better dealt with in civilian federal court, which have prosecuted hundreds of terrorist cases successfully.

“I always prefer the federal court to a military commission, because a federal court has had a remarkable record of achievement,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “We convicted close to 500 terrorists in federal court, and very few in military commissions.”

The Obama administration said there was no possibility that Khatalla would be sent to Guantanamo, which hasn’t received a new prisoner since Obama became president.

“Let me rule that out from the start,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement. “The administration’s policy is clear on this issue: We have not added a single person to the GTMO population since President Obama took office, and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system.”

In a similar case, Abu Anas al Libi, a Libyan al-Qaida operative tied to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, was snatched from outside his home in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, last October. He was kept aboard a U.S. Navy ship for several days before being transferred to New York for prosecution.

The attacks in Benghazi took place on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The first was an assault by as many as 70 men who stormed the U.S. special mission in Benghazi, and set it ablaze, killing Stevens and State Department computer specialist Sean Smith. The second began in the wee hours of Sept. 12 at a separate CIA compound about a mile away, where a mortar barrage killed security contractors Tyrone Wood and Glen Doherty.

Khattala’s name emerged as a suspect within hours of the attack. In interviews with journalists, Khattala said he went to the compound site after the attack began but did not lead it. All the while, he boasted that he moved around Benghazi without fear of arrest.

According to two U.S. officials, the raid was the result of months of planning, but few other details were known. In a briefing with reporters Tuesday, Kirby declined to say which U.S. force conducted the raid, how long that force was on the ground in Libya, whether U.S. officials had notified the Libyan government before or after the raid, or where Khattala was captured.

The Washington Post, which said it had learned about the capture on Monday but agreed to a request from the White House to delay publishing a story because of security concerns, reported that U.S. Special Operations Forces captured Khattala.

Kirby’s statement said that “on Sunday, June 15, the U.S. military, in cooperation with law enforcement personnel,” captured Khattala. It added, “There were no civilian casualties related to this operation, and all U.S. personnel involved in the operation have safely departed Libya.”

The Benghazi attacks became one of the biggest controversies to confront the Obama administration. Republicans have charged that the administration covered up details of what took place when it claimed for nearly a week afterward that the storming of the compound was prompted by a protest over a video that satirized the Prophet Muhammad. That version turned out not to be true, however.

Khattala had remained at large for nearly two years, even after witnesses placed him at the consulate during the assault, directing fighters. A commander in Benghazi’s largest revolutionary brigade, the Libyan Shield, told McClatchy two months after the attack that people were frustrated that Khattala was still allowed to openly operate in Benghazi, boasting about his freedom of movement even as he denied participating in the attack.

“Who is going to arrest him? Who is going to question him? It’s the consequences that we fear,” the commander said. “If we arrest someone, a member of his forces will get him out.”

The commander didn’t want to be named after being publicly identified with helping the Americans recruit members for a counterterrorism unit. Within hours of his name surfacing, he said, extremist groups operating in Benghazi threatened to kill him.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., hailed the capture and called it “long overdue,” noting that Khattala has made himself available to “multiple media outlets” in the 21 months since the deaths of four Americans, including the first U.S. ambassador killed in an attack since 1979.

“I hope that this capture brings us closer to justice and accountability,” Royce said. “We should right now be getting from him as much intelligence as possible.”

AFP Photo

On Hearing The Real Dr. King

WASHINGTON — We tend to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. we want to honor, not the Martin Luther King Jr. who actually existed.

We forget the King who at the time of his ministry was labeled an “extremist,” who explicitly called out “moderates” for urging African-Americans to slow down their march to justice, who quite brilliantly used the American creed as a seedbed for searing criticisms of the United States as it existed.

The postponement of the planned ceremonies dedicating the new memorial to Dr. King did not come in time to stop the tributes from flowing in advance. This was a blessing. Debating the meaning of King’s legacy is one of the best ways of ensuring it endures — although some will always try to domesticate him into a self-help lecturer who’d be welcomed at the local Chamber of Commerce or even a Christian Coalition meeting.

That we have failed to live up to King’s calls for economic justice — a central commitment of his life’s work to which my colleague Eugene Robinson rightly called our attention — is one telltale sign of our tendency to hear King’s prophetic voice selectively. But selectively hearing him is better than not listening at all, as long as it doesn’t lead to a distortion of what he believed.

One of the many things King understood was the always incipient radicalism of the American idea. At a time when paying homage to our nation’s origins seems far more a habit of the tea party than of progressives, King, like Abraham Lincoln before him, threw our founding documents in our faces and challenged us to take them seriously.

His “I Have a Dream” speech was an extended and impassioned essay on the American promise. The civil rights movement’s demands, he insisted, arose from American history’s own vows.

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” King proclaimed, “they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'”

One of the most dramatic moments in the speech came next. “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned,” King said. “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.'”

This is the wonderful paradox of King: A Christian preacher, he understood the power of rooting arguments in a tradition. But this did not make those arguments any less radical. His emphasis was on those words “insufficient funds,” on our sins against our own claims.

This focus on calling out injustice — pointedly, heatedly, sometimes angrily — is what the people of King’s time, friend and foe alike, heard. It made many moderates (and so-called moderates) decidedly uncomfortable.

Anyone tempted to sanitize King into a go-along sort of guy should read his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” from April 1963. It’s a sharp rebuke to a group of white ministers who criticized him as an outsider causing trouble and wanted him to back off his militancy.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King replied. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. … Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” Yes, pleas for justice ought to be able to cross state lines.

King also declared himself “gravely disappointed with the white moderate” who, he feared, was “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

And recall King’s response to being accused of extremism. Though “initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist,” he wrote, “as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.” Jesus, he said, was called “an extremist for love,” and Amos “an extremist for justice.” The issue was: “Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

We have rendered Dr. King safe so we can honor him. But we should honor him because he did not play it safe. He urged us to break loose from “the paralyzing chains of conformity.” Good advice in every generation — and hard advice, too.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group