Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal on Friday has prompted fundraising site GoFundMe to lift its ban on Rittenhouse’s defense fundraisers.
GoFundMe claims Rittenhouse’s legal defense fundraisers were banned because he was accused of a violent crime, but his exoneration on Friday has eliminated that concern.
“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime,” the company said in a statement posted to Medium.
“If someone is acquitted of those charges, as Rittenhouse was today, a fundraiser started subsequently for their legal defense and other expenses would not violate this policy,” the statement read. “A fundraiser to pay lawyers, cover legal expenses or to help with ongoing living expenses for a person acquitted of those charges could remain active as long as we determine it is not in violation of any of our other terms and, for example, the purpose is clearly stated and the correct beneficiary is added to the fundraiser.”
Rittenhouse was acquitted on November 19 of all charges against him, including first-degree intentional homicide, which would have resulted in a mandatory life sentence. And while the Left has been engaged in epic public meltdowns since Friday, the verdicts have been touted as a victory for self-defense and against mob rule.
In August of 2020, GoFundMe removed fundraisers for Rittenhouse’s defense “for violating its terms of service” without any further explanation for the decision. Users who searched for Rittenhouse’s campaign were met with the following message: “Campaign Not Found: We’re sorry, but that campaign cannot be found. Please check the link URL and try again.”
Of course, GoFundMe was not quite so vigilant about preventing money from being raised for alleged violent criminals when it came to fundraisers for 2020 rioters. In fact, the organization itself donated money to Riot Kitchen to provide logistical support for riots, Twitter user Martyr Made observed.
GoFundMe’s double-standard was immediately called out by The New American, which reported at the time:
GoFundMe had no qualms about raising money for the relatives of sex pervert Joseph Rosenbaum, the first man Rittenhouse killed.
The crowdfunding site has raised more than $20,000 to bury the sociopath, who was convicted in 2002 for sex with a minor and was a major disciplinary problem in prison. In video before the shooting, he is seen shouting “Shoot me, n***a” at Rittenhouse.
Nor does GoFundMe object to raising money for Anthony Huber’s “partner.” Huber, who also attacked Rittenhouse and wound up dead, was a dangerous, violent thug convicted of felony domestic abuse for trying to strangle someone. That effort has pulled in almost $150,000.
GoFundMe has raised almost $40,000 for Gaige Grosskreutz, the revolutionary thug and gunman who approached Rittenhouse after he shot Huber. Grosskreutz has a conviction for carrying a firearm while intoxicated.
Last, GoFundMe has collected more than $2 million for sex-assault suspect Jacob Blake, the who resisted arrest when police shot him in Kenosha, the event that gave the Marxist revolutionaries in Antifa and Black Lives Matter an excuse to burn down the city. Blake was the subject of an arrest warrant.
Luckily for Rittenhouse, donations continued to flood in through other avenues, including another fundraising website, GiveSendGo. That site raised more than $625,000, far surpassing its $500,000 goal. A quick review of its recent donations reveals that donors are continuing to donate to the fundraising page as recently as today. The Kyle Rittenhouse Defense Fund, known as FreeKyleUSA, posted in June that FreeKyleUSA and The Milo Fund LLC (named after Rittenhouse’s puppy) had raised $464,111 since March 1.
And while Rittenhouse has been cleared of criminal charges, he could potentially face civil charges related to his actions that will require fundraising. As observed by Deadline.com, Rittenhouse is also involved in a dispute over a $2 million bond posted by his former attorney, John Pierce.
Likewise, it has been widely speculated that Rittenhouse could pursue defamation lawsuits against multiple media outlets, Democratic politicians, and liberal pundits for statements made before the trial, as well as deliberately false statements made post-verdict in spite of the evidence presented at the trial that led to his acquittal.
“The parallels between me and Kyle Rittenhouse are impossible not to draw,” former Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann wrote in a column for the Daily Mail in which he directly reached out to lend support to Rittenhouse. Sandmann famously filed multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against CNN and the Washington Post over the their coverage of the “confrontation” between Sandmann and a supposed Native American elder in which the network and media outlet falsely claimed Sandmann was the aggressor. CNN and the Post both settled with Sandmann in January 2020, though the details of the monetary awards were not made public.
