Grift alert: Scammers register fake Donald Trump legal defense fund with federal regulators

Unless Donald Trump’s legal defense fund is being run out of an apartment in Wheaton, Ill., and its email address carries the extension “opayq.com,” scammers are on the hunt to punk loyal supporters of the former president.

On Monday morning, a day after the New York Times reported that Trump was creating a legal defense fund to cover the bills of witnesses and defendants, a person (or people) filed separate paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to create the “Donald Trump Legal Defense Fund”.

Other hallmarks of it being a scam? The listed custodian of records and treasurer for the Donald Trump Legal Defense Fund gave an address in Downers Grove, Ill., that tracks back to a building that houses a “workspace and social lounge designed for suburban professionals”.

A voicemail left by Raw Story at the phone number on the application was returned but the caller was silent.

On Tuesday, the FEC itself sounded a skepticism alarm. It sent a letter to the Donald Trump Legal Defense Fund’s treasurer, identified as Taylor Stewart, saying, basically: Not funny, guys.

“Knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency, including the Federal Election Commission, is punishable under the provisions of (law),” the letter said. “The Commission may report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. If the information you submitted in FEC Form 1 is, to the best of your knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete, please file a response to confirm this.”

The letter added that “each treasurer is personally responsible for accuracy of any information or statement in a filed report.”

The New York Times and others reported that the real legal fund will be called Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc.

It is not unusual for the FEC to receive fake applications for political candidates and committees and has struggled to stop them and it rarely pursues the matter legally, either through civil or criminal channels.

Just about anyone can create a federal political committee and generate an official, public organizational document that appears on the FEC’s website, FEC.gov.

It may take weeks for FEC officials — in classic whack-a-mole fashion — to “administratively terminate” committees that violate commission regulations or are otherwise unresponsive to the agency’s inquiries.

Earlier this year, one candidate’s name was a reference to a 1970s porn movie.