Roger Stone (via Sarah Rollins) registers Stop The Steal, a 527 tax-exempt political organization. That same day, Stone transfers $50,000 to Stop The Steal from his Committee to Restore American Greatness PAC (CRAG). The PAC then pays his buddies at Jensen & Associates $20,000.
On July 12, 2016, Stop the Steal transferred $63,000 to CRAG. Its IRS paperwork doesn’t appear to show how, having made expenditures and raised negligible money in the interim period, it had that much money to return to CRAG, suggesting it may not have reported all its donations.
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Stone doesn’t just use Stop The Steal for hiding donations, though. He also uses the name to trick people into donating directly to CRAG. In fact, Stone launched StopTheSteal.org at least a month in advance of STS being its own business. All donations through the website went to CRAG. That practice continues after Stop The Steal is registered and claims to be separate from any PACs.
This is similar to Donald Trump’s “election defense fund” in 2020. Websites are set up to receive donations to pay for Trump’s post-election legal battle, but the fine print says the money is going to pay off Trump’s debt and fund his Save America PAC.
Stop The Steal initially claims that Ted Cruz rigged the Republican primaries. After the November election, the website claims that Hillary Clinton rigged the popular vote. In 2020, Stop The Steal claims Democrats and Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election. All of these campaigns include asking for donations from Trump supporters.
Note: I’m just now learning about CRAG and expect to update this post in the future. I expect there are more nefarious goals behind Stop The Steal (2016) that others have uncovered.
External Sources
StopTheSteal.org, March 10, 2016
Photo: Anthony Crider (Cropped & Color Edited)
