A day after former US President Donald Trump was handed over the historic guilty verdict in the infamous hush money case, his campaign said that it had shattered its own fundraising record. On Thursday, the business mogul turned politician created history for all the wrong reasons after a 12-member jury found him guilty of falsifying his business records.

According to the Financial Times, Trump’s campaign raised almost twice as much money than on any previous day. The money was raised through an online donor platform.

The campaign said on Friday morning that it had raised $34.8mn following the verdict. It is pertinent to note that with this verdict, Trump became the first ex-president ever to be convicted of a felony. He was found guilty on all 34 counts and was accused of hiding the hush money given to adult film star Stormy Daniels from his business records.

The campaign site briefly crashed 

Trump’s campaign said that the amount was nearly double the sum garnered on its best-ever day on the WinRed donation platform. With the massive inflow of donations, the site briefly crashed as well.

“President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November fifth is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict,” said Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles in a statement.

Shortly after the verdict started making headlines, Trump’s campaign moved within minutes to start a donation drive and went on to refer to Trump as a “political prisoner”.

“I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial,” wrote Trump on the campaign page. “I DID NOTHING WRONG!”

Even before the verdict, Trump’s campaign has stepped up its fundraising efforts, including holding events with oil barons in Texas and a planned June trip to Silicon Valley.

Jason Thielman, who runs the official Senate Republican campaign also noted the spike in the campaign funds. “Outrage over the sham verdict against Trump has spurred average Americans into action!” Thielman wrote on X, formally known as Twitter.

Outrage over the sham verdict against Trump has spurred average Americans into action! The NRSC just had its largest online daily fundraising haul of the cycle. The people are energized and determined to take back the White House and Senate!

— Jason Thielman (@ThielmanJason) May 31, 2024

“The NRSC just had its largest online daily fundraising haul of the cycle. The people are energized and determined to take back the White House and Senate!” he added.

Not only this, Google searches for DonaldJTrump.com and WinRed spiked over 5,000 per cent, the “Trump campaign website” jumped over 1,000 per cent and the “Biden campaign website” saw an increase of over 350 per cent, Financial Times reported.

Billionaires like Stephen Schwarzman, Bill Ackman and Miriam Adelson have expressed their intentions to support the former president in the upcoming elections.

With inputs from agencies.

MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Board of School Directors is scheduled to consider the future of MPS Superintendent Keith Posley on Monday, June 3.

According to the school board’s meeting agenda, members could meet in closed session to discuss Posley’s “dismissal, demotion, licensing or discipline.”  

Multiple requests to interview Posley – made prior to the Friday’s agenda update – were denied or went unanswered. He did not speak during Thursday night’s board meeting.

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A lot happened for the school district this week, but it all centers on financial woes. A scathing letter from the Wisconisn Department of Public Instruction stated MPS has not submitted required financial data to the state, with some reports more than eight months past due. 

The delays could cost MPS millions of dollars and impact how funds are allocated to other school districts across Wisconsin.

It led to a volatile school board meeting on Thursday night, during which some people were escorted out as members tabled a $1.5 billion budget proposal that could cut hundreds of positions. 

MPS Board Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi said the board took “immediate action” to get the proper financial experts on staff and working with DPI. FOX6 asked her to clarify, on the record, if and when the school board knew how this was allowed to happen. She declined.

FOX6 also asked Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Thursday if he had trust in MPS leadership and Posley.

“My goal right now is to make sure this gets solved, and that’s a decision for the administration and the school board to make,” he said. “My responsibility right now is to make sure conversations are happening, and that the kids who attend Milwaukee Public Schools are in the best position to get all the resources that they need.”

Oregon lawmakers are spending more than $5.4 million to help elections officials revamp their system for reporting campaign finances and clear a massive backlog of languishing election complaints, in preparation for new rules set to shake up state politics.

The money, approved Friday morning, is a crucial bit of unfinished business left after lawmakers’ scramble earlier this year to pass a package that will limit the money Oregon political campaigns can accept beginning in 2027, among a host of other changes.

That surprise proposal, House Bill 4024, was the product of hurried negotiations between business, labor and so-called good government groups. But it came together too late for elections officials to get a clear picture of what it would cost to put into place.

Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade instead brought a $5.4 million proposal forward this week, as lawmakers are meeting for routine interim committee hearings and considering dozens of “emergency” spending items. Similar or higher costs for the effort are likely in the next budget.

Griffin-Valade’s proposal includes expanding her office by 21 employees.

Many of those will be informational technology workers who will help completely revamp the state’s ORESTAR system for reporting and displaying campaign financial transactions. Oregon elections officials have pressed for years for funding to replace the two-decade-old system, which they say is unwieldy for users and so old that finding technical support is difficult. The office is now seizing on the new campaign finance rules – and a related requirement that it create a new online dashboard to help the public track political spending – to push forward with a replacement. A written proposal says the Secretary of State plans to “undertake a complete overhaul of ORESTAR prior to January 1, 2027… with a required go-live date of January 1, 2028.”

The office is also proposing adding two investigators who can look into elections complaints that have ramped up in recent years, along with a manager to oversee that work. Those would add to an existing staff of three investigators, one of which was approved in the recent legislative session.

There are more than 750 outstanding complaints before elections officials, some of them years old, and more coming in all the time.

“So far during the 2024 election cycle, SOS has received twice as many complaints as they had at this point in the 2022 election cycle and seven times more than the 2020 election cycle,” the Secretary of State’s Office said in a budget request.

Griffin-Valade says extra workers will be necessary to clear the backlog before the onset of new regulations that are bound to spur new complaints, and which require that officials handle complaints more quickly.

The surge in complaints isn’t unique to Oregon. But it has been a special concern to lawmakers like state Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, who urged his colleagues to approve the funding in a meeting of the Legislature’s Emergency Board on Friday morning.

“This isn’t something we can wait on,” Gomberg said.

Not everyone was convinced. A handful of Republican lawmakers voted against the package over concerns that the funding should have been approved alongside the campaign finance bill, and that the state was moving too hastily to replace its ORESTAR system.

“I don’t see any harm in waiting until the next legislative session,” said state Sen. Fred Girod, R-Silverton.

The proposal passed the Emergency Board despite those concerns.