The man behind a GoFundMe page that raised $11 million to build Trump's wall also ran conspiracy pages that got kicked off Facebook

Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while participating in a tour of U.S.-Mexico border wall prototypes near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. U.S., March 13, 2018.

• A GoFundMe page has raised $10 million in a quest to build Trump's border wall with private donations.
• Its founder Brain Kolfage has previously complained that news sites he ran got banned by Facebook for "Inauthentic Activity" in October.
• When asked why he didn't mention his past on his GoFundMe page he told NBC he "didn't want it to be a distraction."
• Trump is struggling to get funding for the wall from Congress, and threatened to force a government shutdown over the issue.
• The GoFundMe seeking to raise $1 billion says: "This won't be easy, but it's our duty as citizens."

The man behind a GoFundMe page which raised $11 million in private money to build President Trump's proposed border wall also ran conspiracy pages which got kicked off of Facebook.

US veteran and amputee Brian Kolfage aims to raise $1 billion with his "We The People Will Fund The Wall" fundraiser, and use the money to construct the 2,000-mile wall along the US border.

YouTube/Gary Sinise Foundation

The GoFundMe page's founder Brian Kolfage.

It went live on Sunday, and as of Friday morning had just passed the $11 million mark, with contributions from 186,000 backers, one whom donated $50,000 anonymously.

Kolfage told NBC on Thursday that he used to run several Facebook pages, four of which were culled when Facebook deleted 559 pages on the site for "Inauthentic Activity."

He only identified one page by name, which was called Right Wing News.

Facebook said these pages "mislead others about who they are, and what they are doing" and were "using fake accounts to drive traffic to their websites."

GoFundMe

The GoFundMe page which aims to raise $1 billion.

NBC said the page Right Wing News frequently trafficked in conspiracy theories.

After his site was culled, Kolfage made a group called Fight4FreeSpeech in order to raise money to keep the pages alive, he told NBC.

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He said did not mention his past on the GoFundMe as he "didn't want it to be a distraction" from the border wall project.

"I don't wanna mix the two. That shouldn't be the focus. My personal issues have nothing to do with building the wall," he said.

Kolfage did an interview with the Guardian around the time the pages were taken down, and said he was shocked: "I've talked with Facebook maybe 50 times in the last few months," he said "not once did they ever say we broke any rules or did something wrong."

On the GoFundMe page Kolfage wrote: "Like a majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again."

"President Trump's main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he's followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still."

"Democrats are going to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn't get his victory," he wrote

"This won't be easy, but it's our duty as citizens."

On Thursday, Trump said he would not sign a bill to keep funding the government after December 21 because Congress is not providing money for his border wall.

Kolfage says the government has accepted large private donations before, like when "a billionaire donated $7.5 million to fund half of the Washington Monument repairs in 2012." He says the wall project is a similar situation.

A rival GoFundMe campaign to buy "ladders to get over Trump's wall" was created in response to Kolfage's.