A federal judge threw out a lawsuit by WinRed, a GOP fundraising platform (details here), “seeking to block attorneys general in four states from investigating the company’s fundraising tactics,” CNBC reported on Thursday, January 27, 2022 (story here).
The New York Times reported last spring that “WinRed’s use of prechecked boxes to automatically enroll supporters of former President Donald Trump into recurring charges result[ed] in high demand for refunds and allegations of fraud.”
That led attorney general consumer protection divisions in Minnesota, Maryland, New York, and Connecticut to ask WinRed for documents. Instead of providing them, WinRed sued in federal court to block the requests, claiming “federal law should preempt any state-level consumer investigations.”
After the ruling, Connecticut AG William Tong said his office “initiated our investigation into WinRed to protect consumers, regardless of their political affiliation, from deceptive and unfair marketing practices,” and pledged to “defend consumers from ‘unscrupulous and misleading business practices,’” CNBC said.
In 2004, the Seattle Times ran an expose of another GOP group, College Republicans, who scammed vulnerable senior citizens, in some cases taking their entire life savings (see that story here).