Vet’s online fundraising for border wall surpasses $7M

If neither Mexico nor Congress is going to fund President Donald Trump’s border wall, then Brian Kolfage has a more expedient plan: Gofundme.

In just four days this week, the military veteran’s crowd-sourced campaign for construction of the border wall raked in more than $7 million in donations from more than 117,000 people as of Thursday afternoon. Kolfage, a triple amputee who earned a Purple Heart while serving in Iraq, is aiming to raise $1 billion for wall funding through Gofundme. He proposed on the Gofundme page that if every one of the 63 million people who voted for Trump donated $80, they would get the wall that Trump promised them, echoing an idea included in a New York Post column over the weekend.

The 37-year-old Air Force veteran of Miramar Beach, Florida, said in an email to The Washington Post that he decided to start the campaign on Sunday because “political games from both parties” have been holding back funding for the wall. He said his campaign, “We The People Will Fund The Wall,” was about “giving the people the power.”

“It’s time to stop playing games with voters,” Kolfage said in an email. “If we are told we’re getting something, make it happen.”

Could the government just take all the Gofundme cash Brian Kolfage, who lost three limbs as an Air Force airman in Iraq in 2004, says of his Gofundme campaign for a border wall: “It’s time to stop playing games with voters. If we are told we’re getting something, make it happen.” He is shown at a 2014 salute to veterans. that Kolfage ends up raising? It’s complicated.

Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to allow the Treasury Department to accept public donations for the purpose of funding the wall. GOP Reps. Warren Davidson of Troy, Ohio, and Diane Black of Tennessee have each filed a bill seeking to create a “Border Wall Trust Fund,” which Black’s bill specifies would be appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security. Black’s proposal would even create a “commemorative display,” honoring all the donors who chipped in. But those bills are sitting in committee and would seem unlikely to have much chance of passage once Democrats take control of the House in January.

But Kolfage cited the possibility of new legislation on his Gofundme page, assuring donors that he would find a way to ensure that “100 percent of your donations will go to the Trump Wall.” He assured them it would be possible by pointing to the 2012 Washington Monument restoration project. Congress allocated $7.5 million to repair damage to the monument after the 2011 East Coast earthquake, but sought a matching donation from the private sector. A philanthropist billionaire stepped up to help through the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit publicprivate partnership with the National Park Service.

Kolfage’s campaign is far from the only private plan seeking to help the president pay for the wall, but is by far the most successful.

On Sept. 11, 2004, during Kolfage’s second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the airman was wounded when a rocket shell exploded about 3 feet from him. Although he lost both legs and his right arm, he survived after returning to Washington for marathon surgery within 36 hours of the attack.

The ardent Trump supporter described his politics as “funky,” preferring straight shooters but not confined to one party. He said he filmed a campaign ad for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-ariz., months before she was shot in 2011. The following year, he attended President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address as her special guest.