A group linked to a shady political scam artist has raised $100,000 from robocalls impersonating President Donald Trump that ask recipients to donate to his 2020 campaign.
CNN's KFILE reported Thursday that more than 200,000 people have gotten robocalls using a Trump-sound-a-like narrator asking them to donate to "the campaign."
"I'm Donald Trump. Tonight I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border, out of love and devotion to our country," the narrator of the calls read. "Be one of the hundreds thousands of patriots that helped President Trump finally build [the] wall by making a one-time urgently needed donation to the campaign."
KFILE's investigation found that the calls were carried out by the Support American Leaders PAC run by 32-year-old Matthew Tunstall. When CNN reached out to the official Trump 2020 campaign for comment, reporters were told that the PAC is not affiliated with the campaign.
Tunstall, the report noted, "has a history of managing shadowy groups that target people with politically charged calls in order to raise money while doing very little -- if anything at all -- to put that money toward a political purpose."
In 2016, the PAC leader who KFILE's Andrew Kaczynski noted on Twitter has been affiliated with shady groups on both sides of the political divide, raised $300,000.
One of Tunstall's PACs that claimed to support both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton was reported to law enforcement after it used a recording of former President Barack Obama followed by an ask to "help Obama impeach Trump," KFILE reported in early 2017.
"The operation effectively amounts to paying for ads to raise money to pay for more ads, with Tunstall taking home whatever money doesn't get used to pay for more ads," Kaczynski noted on Twitter. "The enterprise appears to break rules policed by 3 different federal agencies on impersonation and ad disclosure."
