In his latest video, Beau Of The Fifth Column reports that Cheetolini’s finance scam “Patriots Legal Defense Fund” (US spelling) has been “hacked”. If you visit the PLDF site at this moment, you will see that it has been altered. It now reads, in part, with links to the named sites:
DO NOT SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP’S FRAUDULENT
PATRIOT LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
In our country, everyone has to follow the rules, no matter who they are. Our Constitution, the big rule book of our nation, says that we’re all equal. Nobody gets special treatment.
I want to talk a bit about lying. A lie is when someone doesn’t tell the truth on purpose. It’s like saying you ate an apple when you really ate a cookie. Lying is bad because it breaks trust. Imagine if your friends didn’t believe you anymore because you lied a lot. In some cases, like when people lie to the courts or the police, it’s not just bad, it’s a crime.
[. . .]
Consider donating to the following organizations:
The Legal Defense Fund
ACLU
Brennan Center For Justice
Rock The Vote
I disagree with BotFC about what happened. If my guess is right, this is going to be delicious.
I did a Who Is search on “patriotlegaldefensefund.com”. The domain registration payment was made three weeks ago, July 30, 2023, paid for five years in advance. The purchaser is anonymous.
Read godaddy’s blog (linked below) for domain renewal after the expiration date. The site owner will receive renewal payment requests, and has up to 30 days to respond. If they don’t respond, the domain can be purchased by other people. The old site owner has no legal means to demand its return after day 36, and must negotiate with the new domain owner.
Someone else can snag your expired domain, but not right away
[. . .]
Taking .com domains as a bases, the timeline is as follows:
GoDaddy makes the first billing attempt one day after the domain expires. If the billing fails, the domain name expires and the domain is parked. The domain can still be renewed at no cost.
On day four, GoDaddy makes the second billing attempt. Even though the expired domain can still be renewed at no extra cost, there might be interruptions in website and email services.
On day twelve, GoDaddy makes the third and last billing attempt. The owner can renew the expired domain within two days at no extra cost.
On day nineteen, the owner can still renew the expired domain but for the cost of a one-year renewal fee plus a redemption fee of $80.
If the expired domain isn’t renewed on the twenty-fifth day, the domain is added to the expired domain name auction and starting on day thirty, the domain can no longer be redeemed. The auction ends on the thirty-sixth day and if nobody buys it, the expired domain is returned to the registry and they may hold the domain before releasing it for general registration.
Given Chump’s history of non-payment to people (i.e. lawyers, cities, media costs, his own fake social media site, etc.), it wouldn’t surprise me if nobody paid godaddy and the renewal notices were ignored. And if they failed to pay for thirty six days, and someone bought it….
Taking over a domain is only legally actionable if the new owner using the site for personal profit (i.e. continuing to ask for “donations” to Cheetolini and pocketing them). The new owner is NOT doing that. Instead, the new owner is asking that donations be given to legitimate charities. Cheetolini and his social mafia organization may have no legal recourse to stop this.
And no, this wouldn’t qualify as cybersquatting.
Since I have no interest in supporting Trump in any way at all, I had no clue that this site even exists until I read your post.
I think I remember reading about some site for making donations to Trump’s campaign, and that some or all of the funds have been diverted to legal defense. Is patriotlegaldefensefund.com a domain that Trump or one of his minions actually ever owned, or is it a whole new one that anonymous created out of the blue?
I’m guessing the former since it seems to be something that Beau already knew about. If that’s true, then given your Who Is result, your guess that somebody bought the domain after it expired is probably the right one. It’s not like Trump has ever failed to pay what he owes before. 😎
We can hope that, “If [your] guess is right, this is going to be delicious.” 😎
It *was* Cheetolini’s official scam site, where his “defence PAC” collected money. But it may not be anymore.
This is the kind of thing that can happen when you decide not to pay your IT staff. It’s not even malicious. It’s even kind of trivial, actually. It takes almost no effort. I checked and past day 36 I think someone could have paid as little as $23 to get that domain for 2 years. Hosting is a different matter but owning the domain is what really lets them keep Trump from making money off of it and put whatever they like up there (or nothing at all).
Looks like the Angry Cheeto reclaimed the PLDF domain—as of 5:31PM, California time, on 23 August 2023, it’s showing the Cheeto’s wheedling for cash again.