Normally the grifters at least pretend to work for the betterment of the campaign. But not Ian Hawes, the 25-year-old Maryland man who set up a website, dinnerwithtrump.org. At first glance, Hawes' website has all the trappings of an official Trump campaign website. Under closer inspection, you'll see that the site is in no way formally affiliated with Trump. A report from Politico found Hawes has raked in more than $1 million from the scheme, which involved forming a political action committee to accept donations and funneling many of the dollars raised to CartSoft LLC—a company owned by Hawes.

The phony site is remarkably similar to its counterpart at donaldjtrump.com, and more than 20,000 donors have been deceived. In the first three weeks of operation, Politico reports, Hawes spent $108,000 on Facebook ads and took in $350,000 in donations. Those numbers have only increased since, and the proceeds have gone to CartSoft, which is listed as "media" and "media purchasing" on federal forms but has not spent a dime in service of the Trump campaign.

In an email to Esquire, Hawes claimed that "less than 10 percent" of the gross donations have gone to his company.

Top: The real thing. Bottom: The imposter. via Politico

Politico reached out to dozens of donors listed on federal filings, all of whom said they thought they were actually donating to Trump. "I feel ripped off and taken advantage of. This is horrible. That was not my intent," said Mary Pat Kulina, who gave $265. "This is robbery. I want my money back and I want them to add up what they stole from people and give it to Donald Trump."

With the kind of campaign Trump has run, you might think "siphoning money" from him, as Politico put it, isn't such a bad idea. But in real terms, Hawes is siphoning money from ordinary people, who have every right to support their candidate, monetarily or otherwise, even if that candidate is an apricot demagogue.

Also, there's Hawes himself. The man who describes himself on Twitter as a "registered genius, board certified hacker, and grape soda connoisseur" may well avoid any kind of fraud or malfeasance charges because he technically is offering visitors a chance at dinner with Trump. It's just that offer is two tickets to a fundraising event with who-knows-how-many other attendees, as it says "in gray, size 8.5-font on a black background at the bottom of the website." You can win the tickets without donating, but putting money in "double[s] your chances," and plenty have been interested in that.

When one user claimed donations don't actually increase your chances of winning, Hawes' reply was telling: "Monetary contributions don't increase your chance of winning, but we do multiply your entries. We're also a political action committee, so it's our job to collect contributions. So you can eat your own shit." (To be clear, the user had first told him to eat shit.)

via Twitter

This is just one of Hawes' Internet PAC schemes, which include crookedhillary2016.org, a site promoting a contest to revoke Hillary Clinton's security clearance, and previous dinner schemes under other PACs. He is a pioneer of new-age grifting, harnessing the digital age and an increasingly deregulated system of campaign finance to make an easy buck.

In fairness, Hawes has expressed—and demonstrated—a willingness to refund donors' money should they figure out the scheme and demand it. "We'll be happy to return your donations right away," he told Politico, and the site has processed 110 refunds so far. It's just painfully obvious what bet he's making: That in an era where people struggle to differentiate between information sources on the Internet—which normally just leads them to consuming bad information—they'll also struggle to identify a phony campaign website, even after donating.

So far, more than enough people have proven that bet a wise one.

You can read the full report at Politico.

Editor's Note: This post has been edited for clarification, with comment from Hawes added.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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