A GoFundMe campaign to pay for the recent civil judgment against Former President Donald Trump had reached nearly $500,000 in donations from more than 9,000 individual contributors on Monday.
Social media influencer Elena Cardone, wife of billionaire private equity fund manager and entrepreneur Grant Cardone, set up the fundraising site on Friday following the judge’s order for Trump and his associates to pay $355 million plus interest in penalties for civil business fraud.
“I stand unwaveringly with President Donald Trump in the face of what I see as unprecedented and unfair treatment by certain judicial elements in New York,” Cardone said.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his companies to pay the multimillion-dollar judgment to the state, barring the former president from “serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York” for three years.
Trump is also forbidden from applying for loans from any financial institution “chartered by or registered with the New York Department of Financial Services” for three years.
Cardone called the judgment, as well as other criminal and civil litigation against the former president, “an attack on the very ideals of fairness and due process that every American deserves.”
“The fact that a business owner did a loan with a bank, never defaulted, nor missed a payment, pays back the loan with interest and caused no financial damage to anyone, yet, the government overreaches and slaps a business owner with a $355M ruling should terrify all business owners and entrepreneurs,” Cardone said.
The GoFundMe has attracted some attention, with CNN host Don Lemon sharing the site on social media platform X.
Others have criticized Cardone for setting up the website to solicit donations when she herself is in the upper class.
“So far hundreds of non-billionaires have donated money to the billionaire, who committed fraud, in order to help that billionaire pay off his fine, of which would indirectly go to the taxpayers of New York,” commentator Brian Krassenstein said. “I’d rather light my money on fire. At least I’d get a few seconds of entertainment.”
The largest single donation to the fund to date was $10,000, with the vast majority of the donations falling somewhere between $20 and $100.
Grant Cardone himself has also been accused of defrauding former clients, from investing in his real estate company and attending his classes on sales techniques. In 2021, a civil lawsuit against him for fraud was dismissed in full.
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Elena Cardone said on the site that the GoFundMe is “more than a legal fund; it’s a call to all business owners and entrepreneurs to rally in defense of all businesses for a man who has never hesitated to stand in defense of us.”
Cardone Enterprises did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
