支持特朗普的力量通过利用广泛的选民欺诈的毫无根据的说法，为前总统唐纳德·特朗普的“选举辩护基金”筹集资金，积累了越来越多的选举后竞选账户。但尽管特朗普的团队明确表示了目的，但实际上花了相对较少的钱来对抗选举结果。
事实上，记录显示，超过1亿美元被用于各种筹款支出和广告宣传，旨在筹集更多资金。
在11月选举后的三周内，特朗普的团队和共和党全国委员会通过声称选举欺诈和寻求支持来对抗2020年的结果，共筹集了2.07亿美元，其中民主党乔·拜登以700多万张选票战胜了特朗普。根据向联邦选举委员会提交的最新竞选披露报告，即使特朗普的选举挑战步履蹒跚，仍有8000万美元涌入他们的账户。
筹款数字表明了选举舞弊论专家告诉美国广播公司新闻，成为特朗普最忠实的支持者。总部设在华盛顿的善政组织“共同事业”的政策和诉讼副总裁保罗·瑞安称筹款活动具有欺骗性。
“这完全是基于欺诈...瑞安说:“特朗普团队声称选举中存在问题，特朗普需要钱雇佣律师来打官司，他赢得了选举。“根据我20多年来密切关注金钱政治的经验，这是前所未有的。”
特朗普领导的“拯救美国行动委员会”(PAC，Save America)是在选举后成立的，该委员会的官员没有回应美国广播公司(ABC News)的置评请求。
在选举后的几周内，特朗普竞选团队和RNC用600多封电子邮件轰炸支持者，宣称选举“被盗”，并要求为“选举辩护基金”捐款。特朗普选举后的大部分努力针对的是小额捐助者。
但文件显示，在选举后筹集的逾2.8亿美元资金中，特朗普竞选团队和RNC——特朗普选举后法律挑战的主要力量——报告称仅在法律费用上支出约1300万美元。
筹款电子邮件显示，特朗普的筹款团队还试图利用1月份佐治亚州参议院决选来筹集资金，为“佐治亚州选举基金”筹款。但是相对来说，支持这些候选人的钱很少。
根据联邦选举委员会的文件，共和党全国委员会花费了大约800万美元的独立支出来支持两名佐治亚州共和党参议员候选人，尽管RNC国家新闻秘书曼迪·梅里特告诉美国广播公司新闻，RNC花了“数千万美元在佐治亚州的竞选中”，该州有500名受薪工作人员和数千名志愿者。
特朗普的领导委员会“拯救美国”似乎没有花钱帮助佐治亚州的共和党现任者，至少到12月底为止。
相反，当两位现任者都失去了他们的席位，参议院多数派转向民主党时，泛非大会保留了这笔钱。
根据年终文件，特朗普通过他的各种筹款部门，在银行持有超过1.05亿美元的资金进入2021年。RNC手头还有8000万美元。相比之下，民主党报告同期现金为3500万美元。
同样在2020年的最后几周，记录显示特朗普竞选团队退还了4200多笔捐款，总额为1100万美元。竞选财务专家说，这些可能是由于人们的超额捐款，他们的捐款超过了联邦法律允许的最高限额，即每人每次选举2800美元。
在整个选举周期中，特朗普竞选团队和拜登竞选团队都收到了联邦选举委员会关于超过捐款限额的长长的捐助者名单的询问。根据竞选财务规则，竞选活动最多有60天的时间来重新分配超额捐款或将这些捐款返还给捐助者，在这60天内，他们必须将这些捐款保留在单独的账户中，或者在其账户中保留同等的余额。
竞争对手处理退款的方式不同。拜登竞选团队在选举日的三周内返还了超过1300万美元的退款，之后仅返还了77.4万美元。相比之下，特朗普竞选团队在三周内返还了约100万美元，尽管联邦选举委员会多次询问超额捐款。之后，他们返还了1100万美元。
总部位于华盛顿的道德组织竞选法律中心(Campaign Legal Center)的联邦改革主任布兰登·费舍尔(Brendan Fischer)表示，特朗普的竞选团队在选举的最后几周似乎接受了“似乎前所未有”的超额捐款。他补充说，法律中心计算出，在选举的最后阶段，至少有1350笔个人捐款超过了一般捐款限额，相当于数百万笔超额捐款。
像拜登竞选一样，竞选活动在最后一刻看到大量捐款涌入是很常见的。尚不清楚最后一刻捐款的涌入是否导致了特朗普竞选活动的超额捐款激增，这是竞选法律中心在竞选的最后阶段注意到的。
费舍尔指出，特朗普竞选团队在据报道面临现金短缺的时期接受了这些过度的捐款。
费舍尔说:“这确实提出了一个问题，即特朗普竞选团队是否因为真的需要这笔钱而继续接受这些多余的捐款，尽管它知道最终必须退还捐款。”
特朗普竞选团队没有回应美国广播公司新闻的置评请求。
How Trump, RNC raised hundreds of millions pushing baseless election fraud claims
Pro-Trump forces have amassed bulging post-election campaign accounts by exploiting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to solicit money for former President Donald Trump's "Election Defense Fund" -- but despite the stated purpose, Trump's team has spent a relatively small amount actually fighting the election results.
In fact, more than $100 million has instead gone toward various fundraising expenses and advertising efforts aimed at raising even more money, records show.
In the three weeks after the November election, Trump's team and the Republican National Committee together raised $207 million by claiming election fraud and seeking support to fight the 2020 results, in which Democrat Joe Biden prevailed over Trump by more than 7 million votes. And even as Trump's election challenges faltered, an additional $80 million poured into their accounts, according to the latest campaign disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The fundraising numbers signal just how potent the election fraud argument became with Trump's most loyal supporters, experts told ABC News. Paul S. Ryan, a vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a Washington-based good-government group, called the fundraising effort deceptive.
"It was based entirely on fraud ... by Team Trump alleging that there were problems in the election, that Trump needed money to hire lawyers to fight and that he won the election," Ryan said. "And in my experience watchdogging money in politics closely for more than 20 years, this is unprecedented."
Officials with Trump's leadership PAC, Save America, which was formed in the aftermath of the election, did not respond to ABC News' request for comment.
In the weeks following the election, the Trump campaign and RNC bombarded supporters with more than 600 emails declaring the election "stolen" and asking for donations for an "Election Defense Fund." The bulk of Trump's post-election efforts targeted small-dollar donors.
But of the more than $280 million raised since after the election, the Trump campaign and the RNC -- which were the main forces behind Trump's post-election legal challenges -- reported spending only about $13 million on legal expenses, filings show.
Trump's fundraising team also sought to capitalize on January's Georgia Senate runoff elections to solicit funds, by raising money for a "Georgia Election Fund," according to fundraising emails. But comparatively little money actually went to support those candidates.
The Republican National Committee spent roughly $8 million in independent expenditures to support the two Georgia Republican candidates in the Senate runoffs, according to FEC filings -- though RNC National Press Secretary Mandi Merritt told ABC News that the RNC spent "tens of millions in the Georgia races" with 500 paid staffers in the state along with thousands of volunteers.
Save America, Trump's leadership PAC, appears to have spent no money to assist the Georgia Republican incumbents, at least through the end of December.
Instead, the PAC held on to the money as both incumbents lost their seats, swinging the Senate majority to the Democrats.
Through his various fundraising arms, Trump entered 2021 with more than $105 million in the bank, according to year-end filings. The RNC has an additional $80 million on hand. Democrats, by contrast, reported $35 million in cash for the same period.
Also during the final few weeks of 2020, records show the Trump campaign refunded more than 4,200 contributions totaling $11 million. Campaign finance experts say those likely came as a result of excess contributions from people who gave more than the maximum allowed under the federal law, which is $2,800 per election per person.
Throughout the election cycle, both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign received Federal Election Commission inquiries about long lists of donors that exceeded contribution limits. Per campaign finance rules, campaigns are given a maximum of 60 days to reattribute excessive contributions or return those contributions to donors, and during those 60 days they must keep those contributions in a separate account or keep the equivalent balance in their accounts.
The rivals handled the refunds differently. The Biden campaign sent back more than $13 million in refunds within three weeks of Election Day, and just $774,000 afterward. The Trump campaign, by contrast, returned about $1 million within three weeks, despite multiple FEC inquiries regarding excess donations. They then sent back $11 million afterward.
Brendan Fischer, federal reforms director at the Washington-based ethics group Campaign Legal Center, said the Trump campaign appears to have accepted a "seemingly unprecedented" number of excess contributions in the last weeks of the election. He added that the legal center counted at least 1,350 individual contributions that exceeded the general contribution limit in the final stretch of the election, amounting to millions of excess donations.
It's common for campaigns to see a massive influx of last-minute contributions toward the end of a race, as did the Biden campaign. It's unclear if an influx of last-minute donations led to the surge in excess contributions to the Trump campaign that the Campaign Legal Center noticed in the final stretch of the race.
Fischer pointed out that the Trump campaign was accepting these excessive contributions during a period when it was reportedly facing a cash crunch.
"It does raise questions about whether the Trump campaign kept taking these excess donations because it really needed the money, even though it knew that it would have to refund the contributions eventually," Fischer said.
The Trump campaign did not respond to ABC News' request for comment.
