--- title: "Donation Page for Convicted Reality TV Host Crashes Following Guilty Verdict" description: "Within an hour of Donald Trump's historic felony convictions, the presidential candidate's donation site crashed." date: "2024-05-31" modified: "2024-05-31" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-donation-crashes-guilty" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "2024 election" - "donald trump" - "politics" - "the digest" --- # Donation Page for Convicted Reality TV Host Crashes Following Guilty Verdict ![Within an hour of Donald Trump's historic felony convictions, the presidential candidate's donation site crashed.]() *\Image: Alon Skuy via Getty\* ## Rite of Passage Yesterday, former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump joined the [storied ranks]() of the many reality TV stars — although, the first American commander-in-chief — to be convicted in a criminal court. Though Trump being [convicted on all 34 counts]() of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels may have pushed some American voters further away from the Republican frontrunner, many Trump supporters were seemingly animated by it. According [to *Axios*](), Google searches for "Donald Trump donation" and "Donald Trump donation site" spiked. Within an hour of the verdict, Trump's campaign donation website, which is hosted on a platform called WinRed, crashed. In [a post on X-formerly-Twitter](), the Trump campaign attributed the crash to traffic demands. "So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump's campaign that the WinRed pages went down," the campaign wrote in the post. "We are working on getting the website back online as quickly as possible." "Stay strong," it added. ## Leave Trump Alone Per *Axios*, the site was working again in about an hour. That the site went down at all, though, underscores the reality that many MAGA faithfuls remain unswayed — and in fact, are even motivated — by Trump's legal battles. The campaign, for its part, is celebrating the blip as a symbolic win. “From just minutes after the verdict, the digital fundraising system has been hit with record numbers of supporters," Brian Hughes, a Trump Campaign spokesperson, [told *The* *Daily Beast*]() in a statement. "The traffic is so large that it is causing intermittent delays." ## All Caps As the *Daily Beast* reported yesterday, a link to Trump's donation site was posted just minutes after the verdict was announced. Someone close to the Trump campaign also told the *Daily Beast* that Trump-endorsed members were asked to share links to the page. Roughly 30 minutes later, the page went down. It's unclear how much cash the Trump team raked in since the verdict was handed down. Today, the site appears to be working just fine. "I'M A POLITICAL PRISONER!" reads the page's bold, blocky text. "I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!" The jury clearly thought otherwise. **More on the 2024 election:** [*Trump Guilty Verdict Sends "Truth Social" Shares on a Rollercoaster Ride*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()