An online fundraising effort for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his family has surpassed $500,000.
According to the GoFundMe page, the campaign has raised more than $534,000 as of Wednesday morning – close to its current goal of $550,000.
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The fundraiser began at the end of September to collect money for the Kavanaugh family’s security expenses.
The creator, listed as John Hawkins from North Carolina, said that if the family refuses to accept the money, then it will be donated to a charity of Kavanaugh’s choice.
"Like many decent people from both parties, I have been disgusted by the unsubstantiated 36 year old smears aimed at Brett Kavanaugh,” Hawkins said in the description on the fundraiser page. “We live in a country where innocent until proven guilty is supposed to mean something; yet Brett Kavanaugh's reputation is being dragged through the mud while his family is facing non-stop death threats.”
Multiple women have come out with sexual misconduct allegations against the Supreme Court nominee, dating back to his time in high school and early college years.
Notably, the first woman to come forward publicly, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday regarding her allegation that Kavanaugh drunkenly groped her at a high school party 36 years ago.
Kavanaugh denies all the allegations of sexual misconduct.
Ford also has a GoFundMe page, created after she went public with her allegation – first in a Washington Post report – by a group called Team Christine Blasey Ford on the webpage.
So far the page has brought in $528,500, far surpassing the early goal of raising $150,000 for Ford and her family.
“This campaign is a great way to contribute directly to the family to cover the immediate security and personal expenses they are incurring,” the page states.
Donations to the page spiked after Ford testified Thursday by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the page stopped accepting donations after it raised close to $530,000.