Border wall GoFundMe campaign soars to new heights as mainstream media attacks veteran who started it

Editor's note: Several years after the publication of this story, it was reported that Brian Kolfage intends to plead guilty to charges of defrauding donors.

The GoFundMe campaign meant to help fund President Donald Trump's border wall has now raised more than $15 million in just five days. But now the man who started the "We The People Will Fund The Wall" campaign — a triple-amputee Iraq War veteran from Florida — is coming under attack in the mainstream media.

What's going on?

Despite crowdfunding the massive amount of money in less than a week from a quarter million Americans, NBC News published a news story highlighting the "questionable news past" of Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, the man behind the fundraiser.

NBC criticizes Kolfage for allegedly not being entirely transparent on GoFundMe, failing to mention in the campaign description he used to own a Facebook page — Right Wing News — that was shut down by Facebook officials in October.

NBC explains:

The fundraising page doesn't mention Kolfage's most recent business venture, a Facebook page titled Right Wing News and a ring of affiliate sites that frequently trafficked in conspiracy theories.

In October, Right Wing News was pulled down by Facebook in a sweep of more than 559 pages that the company said were "using fake accounts… to drive traffic to their websites" or "were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate."

NBC's story goes on to claim that other sites Kolfage previously ran "pushed false conspiracy theories, like ones claiming Hillary Clinton was secretly hiding deadly illnesses and fake voter fraud stories days before the 2016 election."

How did Kolfage respond?

Kolfage told NBC he didn't mention his news past in the GoFundMe campaign description because he "didn't want it to be a distraction."

"I don't wanna mix the two. That shouldn't be the focus. My personal issues have nothing to do with building the wall," he explained.

Despite rampant skepticism in the mainstream media about the authenticity of the campaign, and whether or not money raised would actually be contributed to the border wall project, Kolfage told NBC he is connected to someone in the inner-circle of the White House to ensure all money raised will help fund the border wall.

"We have someone who is tied in with the White House that's in their inner-circle. We can work on a way where we can guarantee with a contract where [the funding] can only go to the wall," he explained, adding that "a lot of people watching this."