The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced Sept. 25 they had raised at least $5 million in donations, just a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that a formal inquiry into impeaching President Donald Trump was underway.
Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, made the announced on Twitter, adding that there were donors from all 50 states.
“In the 24 hours since news of Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment announcement, @realDonaldTrump’s campaign & @GOP have BLOWN OUT fundraising!” Parscale wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “Huge groundswell of support leading to Trump landslide in 2020!”
Under an hour later, Parscale hinted the sum of the donations raised could be higher.
“To avoid any confusion, this is SMALL DOLLAR donations only. More to come…,” he added.
The National Republican Congressional Committee added on Wednesday that online fundraising has surged 608 percent since Pelosi’s announcement. Meanwhile, RNC chief of staff Richard Walters said that in the past week, it had raised a total of $30 million.
“@TeamTrump and @GOP raised nearly $30M in last week because of Hollywood extremists and the continued witch hunt being led by deranged Dems in the House,” Walters wrote. “Next to @realDonaldTrump, Democrats are our best fundraisers! Thanks, Nancy!”
News of soaring donations came after Pelosi alleged that Trump “seriously violated the Constitution,” saying that the House is “moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.”
She met on Sept. 24 with her caucus of House Democrats before the planned statement.
Pelosi, until recently, had publicly resisted the move despite other top Democrats pushing for it in legal filings and in the media. The move by some Democrats to impeach the president was stalled after former special counsel Robert Mueller was unable to back up claims of collusion between Trump and Russia or obstruction of justice.
During the call, which took place on the morning of July 25, Zelensky was the first to bring up Rudy Giuliani, the Trump attorney who had looked into the Ukrainian business dealings of Hunter Biden. In response, Trump noted that Giuliani is a “respected man” and told Zelensky that he would like to have Giuliani call him.
Trump then referred to videotaped comments, in which Joe Biden describes how—while serving as vice president—he forced the termination of a top Ukrainian prosecutor by threatening to withhold U.S. loans. The prosecutor was allegedly investigating Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden served on the board of directors.
“The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Trump said. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”
Trump asked Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr and Giuliani to look into the matter.
The key allegations about the call were debunked by the transcript, including the claim that Trump made a promise to Zelensky and the claim that Trump repeatedly pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden.
Friends Read Free