Donald Trump calls for Mark Zuckerberg to be prosecuted after $2M donation to Georgia election board

Donald Trump is calling for the prosecution of Mark Zuckerberg amid revelations that a group affiliated with him gave $2 million to Georgia’s Election Commission.

The former president laid out the allegations against Facebook’s CEO on his Truth Social platform on Sunday as he shared an article about the controversial donation.

“He (Zuckerberg) cheated in the election. The whole system is RIGGED. Why isn’t he prosecuted? The Democrats only know how to cheat. America won’t be long now!’ He wrote.

He then repeated his false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged against him and expressed concern that it could happen again.

Crooked Democratic prosecutors, many of them inverted racists, are trying to steal a second presidential election. They did it in 2020, and we won’t let them do it again in 2024. MAGA!!!,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s anger stems in part from a claim that an election commission in Georgia may have violated state law by accepting a $2 million grant from Zuckerberg-affiliated group, US Alliance for Election Excellence.

Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation.

A watchdog, the Honest Elections Project, is now calling for a full investigation of the DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections for what they say is a “flagrant and blatant” violation of a state ban on private funding.

The ban was introduced after allegations that donors used their money to push their left-wing agenda ahead of the 2020 election.

It was spurred by anger and suspicion on the right that Zuckerberg’s money benefited Democrats in 2020.

The watchdog is now calling on the Attorney General, Secretary of State and the Electoral Council to investigate and investigate the cash donation.

“We’re pretty much convinced now that this is an attempt to do two things: to get around those private funding bans by doing what they did in DeKalb County, by looking for loopholes and end rounds, by doing what they can get money in these offices; or by doing what I think they think is even more important work, which is pumping influence into these offices,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections project, told me. Fox news.

“They are trying to collect data and reshape the way these bureaus function so that they essentially become leftist outposts for progressive voting reform. All they do is a ruse to get into these offices and achieve that goal.’

Some of the funding that came in in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic helped jurisdictions cope with the pandemic by providing ballot boxes, voting equipment, extra manpower, protective equipment for polling stations and public education campaigns about new voting methods, among other things. .

Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through an impartial foundation with liberal roots.

Some conservative groups cite analyzes that the money went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties, resulting in higher turnout.

“This massive inflow of funding — which eventually exceeded $400 million — drew heavy criticism, driven by post-election analysis, which showed that the money was overwhelmingly funneled to Democrat-leaning jurisdictions,” said a report. letter from the Honest Elections Project.

A spokesperson for Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan said the grant was a “one-time donation given the unprecedented nature of the crisis.”

“During the 2020 election, Mark and Priscilla made a one-time donation to meet the unprecedented challenge of ensuring Americans can vote safely during the height of the pandemic,” Brian Baker told Fox.

In some states, including Georgia, newly enacted laws now require all donations to local election offices to be distributed by the Secretary of State.

The issue of Zuckerberg’s donations had been a baffle to Trump for the former president.

He told last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, that something was wrong with the amount of money Zuckerberg was channeling to groups that used to support the work of people running the elections.

Conservatives have long complained about how the majority was routed to the Democratic counties, where voter turnout was on the rise.

“Let’s do a full forensic audit of the $417 million that Mark Zuckerberg – who always came to the White House to kiss me – spent to take over local election offices in key Democratic counties,” Trump said in February 2022.

“And I think you’re going to hear a lot about it. You know, if you’re a person who wants to contribute, you can give less than $6,000 or they’ll put you in jail,” Trump explained.

“He gave $417 million. What is going on?’ he demanded to know.

“These people — they call them mules — ballots in Georgia and other swing states were traded and sold at an unprecedented scale and brutality… it was just unbelievable what happened that we have it on tape,” he said.

Elections are more expensive in densely populated urban areas, and especially more expensive in 2020, as states scrambled to switch to mail-in voting to deal with the pandemic.

Metropolitan areas had to buy expensive equipment to open and sort ballots, a task smaller, more GOP-leaning counties could do by hand or with less equipment.

Republican areas have also been discouraged from accepting election grants because of conservative suspicion of Zuckerberg.

Louisiana’s Republican attorney general in 2020 ordered his state’s election offices to reject grants from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which distributed $350 million of the Zuckerberg money.

Every election department that applied received funding,” said CTCL executive director Tiana Epps-Johnson, adding that the distribution of money “reflects those who chose to apply.”