Brian Kolfage

In December 2018, Kolfage started an attempt to raise $1 billion via GoFundMe for the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Kolfage said the target figure was achievable, adding "This won't be easy, but it's our duty as citizens."[9] In an email to the Washington Post, Kolfage stated that he began the fundraiser as "political games from both parties" have been holding back funding for the wall.[10] Within three days, over $9 million had been raised.[11]

In January 2019, Kolfage posted a message to the GoFundMe page that he had decided that raising money through a nonprofit would be more successful. A new 501(c)4 non-profit was created and called We Build The Wall Inc. through which Kolfage planned to have segments of the wall privately constructed through negotiations with landowners along the border.[12][13] Funding was passed through an LLC operated by Timothy Shea of Castle Rock, Colorado.[14][15] The organization has since seen prominent politicians such as Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon take on leading roles. It began construction on a section of the proposed wall.

Kobach's involvement with the 501(c)4 organization, "We Build the Wall," has given cause for concern, as the fundraising and campaign mailing lists it is accumulating are prohibited from coordinating with his Senate campaign.[16]

On July 23, 2019, Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle of Wichita filed the paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission necessary to run in the race for the vacant Senate seat. She criticized Kobach's employment in his controversial privately financed and constructed scheme to build the southern border wall. Wagle supports the building of a federally designed, bid and funded wall while saying Kobach's group undermines federal involvement. "We don’t need some rogue organization going out and building the wall."[17]

On August 1, 2019, Kobach sent out a campaign fundraiser using both the corporate name and email list of "Wall" donors. Common Cause Vice President for policy and litigation Paul S. Ryan said, "At a minimum, this Kobach for Senate fundraising solicitation email appears to violate the 'paid for by' disclaimer requirement" for official campaign communications. Ryan specified the requirement that mandates disclosure of the financial sponsors who originate official political communications. Kobach's email might be legal if his campaign paid fair market value for use of the list. If that were the case, a "paid for by" disclaimer would be required but was not present in the solicitation. Ryan said, "If the Kobach committee did not pay fair market value for the cost of disseminating this email, then the committee has arguably committed the more serious campaign finance law violation of receiving a corporate contribution in the form of a coordinated expenditure." We Build The Wall is legally prohibited from financing federal political campaigns in any fashion. Besides the concerns raised about Kolfage himself, a week prior to the mailer, right-wing anti-immigrant, "Wall" board member and former congressman Tom Tancredo sat on the stage alongside Kobach, and endorsed him in a New Mexico rally pushing the Wall.[18][19]

On August 20, 2020, Kolfage was indicted and arrested along with Steve Bannon and two other co-defendants for their role in defrauding donors to build a border wall along the Mexico–United States border and funneling the money for their own personal use.[4][20]

After writing for The Blaze, Kolfage "fell into" his own news sites feeding Facebook. He has been connected with pages that published clickbait articles, many with false narratives: Freedom Daily, Keep America First, Right Wing News, Fight4FreeSpeech, Trump Republic, VeteranAF, and WoundedAmericanWarrior. Freedom Daily, Keep America First, Right Wing News, and Trump Republic were all shut down by Facebook in October 2018 as part of their purge of "inauthentic activity" sites ahead of the 2018 election.[21][22][23][24][25]

Right Wing News had been created by John Hawkins; Kolfage purchased it from PS Republic in 2017. By October 2018 it had 3.1 million followers. It was linked to another account, Daily Vine.[26][27][23]

Kolfage then created Fight4FreeSpeech and its GoFundMe campaign.[21][23]

Discussing Freedom Daily, Kolfage emailed employees stating "NEVER tell anyone who operates Freedomdaily. It’s a tightly guarded secret, and our LLC has a privacy veil set up to protect it. It allows us to operate without consequence where we can’t be sued or attacked by trolls."[22]

Facebook also shut down Kolfage's Military Grade Coffee business page that he owns or endorses.[28]

It is unclear who owns and operates Military Grade Coffee Company. In the U.S trademark database, Military Grade Coffee is trademarked by West Coast Supplements, Inc., which is a division of West Coast Nutrition, a California dietary supplement chain of stores. However, a search of the California Secretary of State corporations database shows West Coast Nutrition is dissolved, even though several locations of the chain appear to be open.

Kolfage repeatedly created GoFundMe campaigns and allegedly used false narrative stories to draw attention to the campaigns.[29]

Through these methods he allegedly gathered a large list of email addresses of people who would be potentially willing to donate to conservative causes. A former staff member has saved a text message allegedly from Kolfage in which he references stealing or collecting the emails in order to build up his own email distribution.[30]