Did Trump campaign cover hotels, flights and more for Jan. 6 rioters?

The political conditions that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will be studied for decades. The extent to which President Donald Trump influenced the violent attempt to stop Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election remains a major question.

Some critics of the president not only allege he incited the attack with false claims of election fraud, but that his campaign paid for the travel and lodging expenses of the people who stormed the Capitol while they were in Washington, D.C.

That rumor, which has circulated for years (archived), gained traction in recent weeks after former Special Counsel Jack Smith defended his investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before the Senate Committee for the Judiciary. 

One Facebook post claimed, “Jack Smiths new document drop shows that the Trump Campaign PAID for travel, hotels, expenses and organizing efforts to bring outside radical organizers” to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 (archived): 

(Democrats, Republicans and Independents for Democracy)

Trump headlined the rally at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, that preceded the attack on the Capitol. At the end of his speech, he asked those present to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. Violence began at the Capitol shortly after Trump finished speaking.

The claim that Trump’s campaign funded the rally draws on authentic, unsealed records that Smith assembled about Jan. 6. However, Snopes found no evidence that his official campaign covered attendees’ expenses or organization costs of that rally.

In addition, the documents Smith compiled are not new. A judge’s order unsealed them in 2024.

One of these documents indicates several independent political advocacy groups received money to organize the so-called “Save America” rally. 

Congressional documents reveal that the financial backing for the event came from one person in particular — Julie Fancelli, heiress to the Publix supermarket chain.

To learn more about the financing, we reached out to Fancelli, Caroline Wren — a Republican fundraiser who helped Fancelli distribute money for the Jan. 6 rally — and some political advocacy groups that received money for the event. We also reached out to the White House asking about Trump’s involvement in the day’s organization. We will update this report if we receive responses.

Smith’s documents outline Jan. 6 rally expenses

In October 2024, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order unsealing 1,889 pages of documents Smith had assembled about what happened on Jan. 6. (Chutkan was set to decide which allegations against Trump could still be prosecuted after a U.S. Supreme Court decision granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions while in office.)

Smith compiled the documents through his investigation into the matter. Notably, some of these documents had been subpoenaed directly from the participants as part of a congressional investigation, as shown below. 

According to the documents Smith submitted, planners of the rally that preceded the Capitol attack proposed a $3 million budget for expenses.

The donations used to cover various expenses were funneled through multiple political advocacy organizations, including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, the Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA — the advocacy arm of Republican Attorneys General Association (Page 305 of the PDF) — Women for America First and Bluebonnet Fundraising, Wren’s fundraising company.

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 305, via Jack Smith)

Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First are all section 501(c)4 organizations, also known as “dark money” groups, or political advocacy organizations that are not legally required to disclose their donors. These groups did not directly work for, or coordinate with, Trump’s official 2020 presidential campaign, but they supported either his candidacy or other Republican candidates running for lower offices.

Save the U.S. Senate PAC and Women for America First are no longer active. We reached out to Turning Point Action, Tea Party Express and the Rule of Defense Fund RAGA seeking details about their roles in the rally but did not receive responses by the time of publication.

The files included the same list of expenses (Page 317) with certain amounts lowered. This copy included handwritten notes, such as “we pay our own way.” The amended budget totaled $2.4 million:

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 317, via Jack Smith)

As we outline below, congressional testimonies revealed how the amounts were amended.

The name of someone who supposedly received $200,000 to “assist with his organization efforts” was redacted in both budget tables. 

Both budgets indicated that some money was earmarked for speaker fees and travel, “crowd building and busing,” and hotels and private flights for a group whose name was redacted. The claim may have originated from these details. The Trump campaign is not listed in this budget.

Republican operative’s testimony aligns with Smith’s budget info

In December 2021, Dustin Stockton, a Republican operative who was involved in the preparation for the “Save America” rally, testified in Congress that Wren told him the night before, on Jan. 5, that she raised $3 million for the event. This testimony aligns with the budget documentation in Smith’s files.

According to Stockton’s account, Wren “parked” the money at “Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, Tea Party Express.” (TPUSA refers to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit 501(c)3 sister organization to Turning Point Action.) Describing his exchange with Wren, Stockton testified (Pages 96-99 of the PDF):

But she tells me a lot of stuff. So she tells me that she raised — 

[…]

And Caroline [Wren] told me that she raised the $3 million, and that she parked the money with the Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, and Tea Party Express. And I actually clarified with her, because, like, I assumed she meant Tea Party Patriots, but she clarified that it was Tea Party Express, which seemed interesting because both Amy [Kremer, former chairperson of Tea Party Express] and I have our political roots there. 

(The budget tables unsealed in Smith’s documents did not list the “Republican Governors Association,” but the Republican Attorneys General Association, which works to elect Republicans as attorneys general across the country and “has been incredibly supportive of President Trump’s legal efforts” to overturn voting results in the 2020 election, according to Page 305 of Smith’s document. Stockton clarified with Snopes he meant the latter in his testimony.) 

Stockton told Snopes via email he helped fundraise for Jan. 6 on behalf of Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer, a leader of Women for America First at the time and someone who spoke at the “Save America” rally.

“I helped the Kremers raise a lot of money for all the D.C. events and bus tours that included January 6,” Stockton said. “It was in the millions of dollars total but I have no idea how much would have been for the event at the Ellipse.”

Wren names Publix heiress Julie Fancelli as donor

In a Dec. 17, 2021, deposition with Congress, Wren said she fundraised specifically for the “Save America” rally, which she called the “Million MAGA March.” 

She said donations from Fancelli, the heiress to Publix, were distributed to several groups tasked with organizing the rally (starting on Page 46 in the PDF), including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express (which Wren suggested because the organization had experience with bussing protesters to designed locations), Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First.  

In her testimony, Wren discussed the amounts Fancelli committed to the various organizations listed in the two versions of the budget presented among Smith’s documents, including $1 million for Turning Point Action (Page 49), $50,000 for Bluebonnet Fundraising LLC (Wren’s company) and $300,000 for Women for America First (Page 51). 

Wren also explains how the amounts were amended. The annotated copy of the budget on Page 317 of Smith’s documents reflected several of those changes.

Fancelli deposed, pleads the Fifth

On Feb. 18, 2022, the congressional January 6 Committee deposed Fancelli. While she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the 132-page transcript mentioned evidence that corroborated Wren’s claims. 

The evidence came from Fancelli, whose records the committee subpoenaed for the investigation.

The evidence, which included text messages and emails read by the interrogators, indicated Fancelli was prepared to donate as much as $3 million toward the rally. She received the proposed budget via email and her accountant helped her amend it. The evidence also suggested she did not expect the rally to turn into a violent attack on the Capitol. 

The committee’s final report said her financial support made the rally possible. 

On Pages 24 and 25 of the PDF, the interrogator read a text exchange between Wren and Taylor Budowich, a then-Republican operative who served as White House deputy chief of staff between January and September 2025:

(…) on Saturday, December 26th, which is the date that Ms. Wren was at your home, Ms. Wren texts, “I’m at Julie Fancelli’s.” “Guess what the budget is she just gave me for our bus project?” “You won’t guess.” “$3 million … ” 

And Mr. Budowich responds with several “lol”s and says, “probably could do it for 3.”

And then Ms. Wren responds, “we can use some for save the us senate.” “I’ll call you when I leave here.” And then turning to the next page, she says, “she wanted to just wire me the 3 mill lol.”

And Mr. Budowich responds, “rich people are so odd.” 

At one point (Pages 40-41), an interrogator quotes language from a budget plan regarding funding for RAGA’s “legal efforts to fight the election fraud around the country.” Because this language appeared in one of Smith’s unsealed documents, it suggests Fancelli received that same version.

Fancelli’s deposition also gives clues about discrepancies between the budget in Smith’s documents and her actual donations. On Page 40, the interrogator reads from an email sent by Marianne Parsons, Fancelli’s accountant, as part of an ongoing conversation about the proposed budget:

And next it says the “Rule of Law Defense Fund- we are cutting that by $50,000 … please trim how many or how much each attorney general gets for expenses and other expenditures.” 

In our email to RAGA, we inquired about the presence of any attorneys general at the rally.

None of this evidence suggests Fancelli wanted or expected the rally to turn into an attack on the Capitol. On Page 89 of her deposition, the interrogator read a text message she had written:

Ms. Fancelli, if I could clarify, on Wednesday, January 6th, at 1:50 p.m., when you asked, “What is really happening?!”, presumably, with the question mark and exclamation mark, it’s possible that you had seen things on the news that indicated that something might be going wrong at the Capitol, and you were trying to check with somebody who was actually there and present. 

Jan. 6 committee’s report on Fancelli’s role

The congessional committee’s final report, published in late 2022, summarized Fancelli’s role in the events of that day:

Fancelli worked with Wren to create a multimillion-dollar budget to convene as many supporters of President Trump as possible To ensure that Fancelli’s dollars made maximum impact, Wren contacted some of the major players who were rallying supporters for January 6th. Wren emailed Kylie Kremer and exchanged texts with [Alex] Jones and [Cindy] Chafian. Fancelli’s goal was clear: she wanted to spend $3 million to “get as many people there as possible.” The resulting budget allocated $500,000 to a busing program and a centralized ad campaign by the Tea Party Express to promote the event. Another $500,000 went to assisting WFAF [Women for America First] and Jones in their organizational efforts.

(Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ podcast inspired Fancelli to support the movement. Jones spoke at the rally. Cindy Chafian was one of the organizers of the rally.)

Fancelli did not respond to our queries as of this writing.

Fancelli has donated money to Republican candidates since at least 2016, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. For example, in 2016, she gave money to Secretary of State’s Marco Rubio’s presidential bid and to the campaign of former  Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican from Florida. The Miami New Times reported Fancelli donated to a pro-Trump “dark money” group in 2019, though we did not find evidence of those donations on the FEC website. 

For further reading, Snopes examined in 2021 whether Trump directly incited the attack on the Capitol in his Jan. 6 speech.