When something implodes, it explodes inward — instead of outward.
In case you missed it, a couple weekends ago TBN ran an ICYMI story on Brian Kolfage of the GoFundMe fame told NBC News when asked about past projects he’s been involved with, he “didn’t want to mention his previous projects because he “didn’t want it to be a distraction.””
Those projects turned out to be Kolfage cultivating and creating several Facebook sites, in violation of Facebook policy, with the theme of campaign efforts to assist other wounded veterans, when it appeared that Kolfage actually trafficked in disinformation and used those sites for people to “donate” to his projects.
After pushing the limits, several of his pages were shuttered in Facebook’s “sweep of more than 559 pages … using fake accounts to drive traffic to their websites,” Kolfage then created FreedomDaily and VeteranAF, in which the former was sued for wrongly identifying a man from Michigan as the driver of the car seriously injuring over 40 people and killing Heather Heyer using 4Chan as his “source.” Both are now defunct.
Kolfage then began appearing on many “right-wing” sites such as WorldDailyNet and Breitbart and appearing on FoxNews to promote a new ‘project’ called Fight4FreeSpeech, “a group against “social media censorship,” amassing new sympathies now in the Alt-right New Right’s movement.
For some reason, after creating his “The Trump Wall” GoFundMe page, Kolfage did not want his past “projects” “to be a distraction.”
On Thursday, BuzzFeed writes, “I Felt Dirty”: Former Employees Of The Veteran Crowdfunding Trump’s Wall Say He Pushed Faked News To Get Rich.
The 37-year-old has spent more than a decade carefully crafting his public persona as an altruistic, conservative public figure, but people who have worked with the veteran told BuzzFeed News he can be vengeful and malicious, and that the pursuit of profits above all else fueled his behavior.
The veteran has also spearheaded other crowdfunding ventures over the years, raising thousands of dollars on GoFundMe with the promise of helping mentor fellow vets at military hospitals, but spokespersons for the medical centers said they have no record of Kolfage working at their facilities or donating any money.
BuzzFeed
After gathering information, corroborated with documents from texts and emails from four former workers, BuzzFeed says, one “Lindsay Lowery, who goes by the alias Prissy Holly,” worked for Kolfage for about a year in 2017, the other three chose to remain unnamed because, they said, they “were afraid to go on the record, citing his past behavior of lashing out and threatening legal action against those who have spoken against him.”
In 2016, Kolfage brags to employees “we purchased the Facebook pages belonging to Patriot Nation” collecting its 2 million fans to “significantly increase our traffic” and generate more revenue.”
By the next year he’s bragging about purchasing Right Wing News, about how quickly he had grown it, writing in on text, “Those fuckers had no clue…The page reach is actually 14 million this week. When I got it [it] was 1 mil.”
The veteran purchased the page, which frequently posted outlandish conservative “clickbait” stories, for more than $100,000, according to a former employee and a colleague.
“Brian is a genius. He knows how to manipulate people and the system,” the former employee said. “The stories were doing more harm than good. Hillary’s face would be on someone else’s body with handcuffs and the story had nothing to do with that. He would brag about how we would be even bigger and explode in 2018 because of the fake news stuff.”
BuzzFeed
Then things became even more outlandish. Kolfage had been creating this persona for more than four years, he’s created multiple GoFundMe pages, one for legal fees against a “radical left-wing extremist who had slandered” him, one he ran, his Fight4FreeSpeech, simultaneously while running his Trump Wall page.
By the end of 2017, he is bragging in texts he now “affiliated” with Trump “to grow a massive Facebook group” and he is going to create an LLC in Nevada. Records for the Nevada show that Freedom Daily licensed “President Donald Trump Official LLC” in November 2017.
Those who worked with Kolfage described calculated efforts to ensure that his ownership of and influence over his web of Facebook pages was untraceable. Lowery said he would also post content under pseudonyms, like Ronnie Martin, to distance himself “from all the shady stuff.”
In one email to employees, Kolfage warned to “NEVER tell anyone who operates Freedomdaily. It’s a tightly guarded secret, and our LLC has a privacy veil set up to protect it. It allows us to operate without consequence where we can’t be sued or attacked by trolls.”
As things grew worse, as writers are complaining more that their story’s headlines were being changed to things that had nothing to do with their content and only with “clickbait,” it was worse, they said, having to deal with Kolfage’s “ire or retaliation.”
After quitting and started her own website, Lowry said Kolfage alleged she tried to recruit one of his writers and after heated arguments Kolfage sent text messages saying, “go fuck yourself” and “Your website is going down today.”
Shortly after, Lowry’s husband called, frantic, saying the FBI was at their door saying they had an anonymous tip she was “going on a killing rampage and talked about killing people.” The next month, her husband, who works for aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, approached him about a report they received saying he was in contact with “foreign nationals,” and “how Lindsay was working for Macedonians.”
On Friday, The Daily Beast writes: GoFundMe Border Wall Campaign Implodes, Turns to Kris Kobach and Sheriff Clarke
Now Kolfage, a prolific operator of conspiracy theory Facebook pages, has recruited a team of prominent figures in President Donald Trump’s orbit to run a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit, named We Fund The Wall, to do some wall construction of its own. The new group’s board, Kolfage announced on Friday, includes Erik Prince, the founder of infamous military contract Blackwater; David Clarke, the former scandal-plagued sheriff of Milwaukee County; Fox News contributor Sara Carter; Tom Tancredo, an immigration hardliner and former Colorado congressman; and former Kansas Secretary of State and voter fraud crusader Kris Kobach
In an update to Kolfage’s The Trump Wall page on Friday, he writes, “The federal government won’t be able to accept our donations anytime soon.”
He claims he has been in contact with ‘government officials’ and that he has put together a “highly experienced team” and he “is highly confident” he and his team “can complete significant segments of the wall in less time, and for far less money, than the federal government, while meeting or exceeding all required regulatory, engineering, and environmental specifications.”
According to the rules of GoFundMe, Kolfage has now said their goals have changed from the original plan, therefore, according to the rules, everyone’s money will automatically be refunded, unless that is, they specifically agree they now want their donations to go to Kolfage’s new project, otherwise, the money is returned.
While GoFundMe proactively sends an email to every donor asking them if they want to accept the redirection of their funds or, if there is no response, the money is automatically returned since the project failed its original intent, Kolfage is busy promoting his new project, the brand new “Florida Corporation named “We Build the Wall, Inc.” at ‘webuildthewall.us‘ website and on his continuous stable of FaceBook pages that he is specifically banned from, but still can be operated as long as they are not administered by Brian Kolfage.
Several pages of which were “promoting the border wall fundraiser” and “were also recently removed because they violated rules regarding misrepresentation.”
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