Trump campaign, GOP raise $13M after Pelosi announces impeachment inquiry

President Trump’s reelection campaign and the GOP have raised $13 million since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Tuesday that House Democrats would launch a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump amid scrutiny over his interactions with Ukraine.

A Trump campaign official confirmed the figure to The Hill, saying it represented funds raised by the campaign as well as the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Trump’s campaign had ramped up its fundraising efforts in the wake of Pelosi’s announcement, sending a text to donors asking them to join Trump’s “Impeachment Defense Team.”

{mosads}The campaign and the RNC said they raised a combined $5 million from online donors in all 50 states in the 24 hours after the investigation was announced.

An RNC official told The Associated Press that Trump was expected to raise another $5 million from a Wednesday night fundraiser and $3 million from a Thursday morning breakfast for his reelection efforts.

The president’s son Eric Trump touted donations on Twitter, tweeting “A BIG thank you to @SpeakerPelosi and the Democrats.”

“People are sick of your nonsense but please keep it up — you are handing @realDonaldTrump the win in 2020!” he added.

A BIG thank you to @SpeakerPelosi and the Democrats – in the last 48 hours we have raised $8.5 million dollars in small dollar donations. People are sick of your nonsense but please keep it up — you are handing @realDonaldTrump the win in 2020!

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 26, 2019 

The fundraising spike comes days before the next end-of-quarter fundraising deadline next week and will top what is expected to be an already massive haul.

Pelosi’s announcement that the House would formalize impeachment proceedings came after months of resistance in part because of her belief that an investigation would fire up the president’s base.

Trump has railed against the latest impeachment push as a “witch hunt” and denied any claims of wrongdoing.

Democrats ratcheted up their impeachment efforts amid scrutiny of a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the president urged the foreign leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his chief political rival for 2020.

A reconstituted transcript of the call released by the White House on Wednesday showed Trump asking the Ukrainian leader to speak with his personal attorney about Biden’s role pushing Kiev to dismiss a prosecutor who was investigating a natural gas company on whose board his son sat.

No evidence has emerged that Biden acted to benefit his son.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said on the call, according to a memo released by the White House. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

A declassified version of a whistleblower complaint that first sounded the alarm over the conversation says “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge” of the call expressed concern that Trump was using his office for his personal political gain. 

– Rachel Frazin contributed

Updated: Sept. 27 at 1:55 p.m.