Thread by @davelevinthal

1/ So, here’s the thing about this @DonaldJTrumpJr’s Trump 2020 fundraising text now. Anyone who responds with a donation will have their personal info shared publicly, whether they like it or not.

2/ That’s because for contributions of more than $200, federal law mandates that a campaign donor’s name, address, employer, occupation and contribution amount be made public.

Read the law: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52…

3/ If they donate $200 or less, Trump donors’ personal information with ALSO be made public.

“What!?” you say. “That isn’t true!”

Well, it is now. Thanks to Donald Trump.

4/ You see, the Trump campaign just started using a fundraising platform called WinRed. Check out the URL of the webpage @DonaldJTrumpJr’s text message points to.

5/ What is WinRed? Like the better known Democratic fundraising platform @ActBlue, it’s a “conduit committee” — a committee that collects money from donors and passes them through to candidate committees such as Trump’s re-election campaign. This is a key point.

6/ It’s key because conduit committes such as @actblue and @winred must publicly report to the @FEC the money — and the personal information of the people donating that money — they send forth to political candidate committees.

7/ The donation amount is irrelevant. If you’ve recently donated any $100, or $10, or even $1 to @realDonaldTrump’s campaign, and you used WinRed to do it, all your personal info will show up on FEC.gov before long.

8/ “But Donald Trump wouldn’t allow that!” you might say.

In fact, Trump led the charge to create WinRed. Let @levinecarrie and @peteroverby explain: publicintegrity.org/federal-politi…

9/ Donald Trump is very proud of WinRed, too — it will “allow my campaign and other Republicans to compete with the Democrats money machine,” he says.

10/ So while @DonaldJTrumpJr may find it “despicable,” @JoaquinCastrotx, political reporters, your neighbors, your mom & anyone else will soon have nearly instant, public access to info about your small-dollar donation to Donald Trump’s campaign thanks to, well ... Donald Trump.

11/ Oh, and here’s the list of every person who’s so far made a political contribution via @WinRed, as viewed on the federal government’s FEC.gov website fec.gov/data/receipts/…