Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a man they say scammed donors of former President Trump out of $250,000.
Authorities charged James Kyle Bell, the founder of the Keep America Great Committee super PAC, with wire fraud, according to a charging document filed Thursday
The charges were first reported by HuffPost justice reporter Ryan Reilly on Friday.
According to the charging document, Bell organized the super PAC purportedly to help Trump’s re-election.
Bell allegedly used an email marketing firm to help solicit donations from donors, even promising up to “5x” matching for donations sent to Trump. The content for the ads were copied from other legitimate websites for campaigns and committees, and even included the official Trump campaign logo, authorities said.
The existence of the Keep America Great Committee was first reported by The Daily Beast in October. The news outlet reported that the landing page of its website and online donation page looked identical to that of the Trump campaign.
In addition to the Keep America Great Committee, Bell allegedly set up another super PAC called the Best Days Lie Ahead Committee, which scammed $100,000 out of donors for President Biden over the 2020 election cycle.
The Justice Department said that during the 2020 election cycle, both PACs received approximately $340,000 in donations. None of the money went to any candidate, party or committee and Bell never provided the matching donations that were promised to the Trump donors.
Meanwhile, Bell was also fraudulently applying for loans under the coronavirus relief Paycheck Protection Program, and received over $1 million.