- A data leak revealed over 92,000 donors who shelled out more than $8 million to the Freedom Convoy.
- Texas CEO Benjamin Pogue's email was linked to a $20,000 donation to the protest, Gizmodo reported.
- A spokesperson said Pogue "has no comment on this issue."
Benjamin Pogue, the CEO of a Texas construction company and a supporter of Donald Trump, has been linked to a $20,000 donation to the ongoing vaccine mandate protests in Canada, according to multiple reports.
On Sunday night, hackers leaked the names of over 92,000 donors who had given millions of dollars to the protesters known as the "Freedom Convoy" via GiveSendGo. Pogue is named among some of the top donors on the Christian crowd-sourcing site and his email is linked to the donation, Gizmodo and The Dallas Morning News reported.
A spokesperson for Pogue told Insider that the CEO "has no comment on this issue."
In 2020, Pogue donated over $385,000 to Trump's reelection efforts, including providing the former president with the use of Pogue's own private jet.
The vaccine mandate protest has been linked to Trump supporters in multiple instances. Several news outlets have posted photos of the protest that include hats and signs referencing Trump and the slogan "Make Canada Great Again." Local news reported that during the first week of the protests a man was seen riding through the protesters on horseback, carrying a "Trump 2024" flag.
Trump and several political figures, including Ben Shapiro and Rep. Majorie Taylor Green (R-GA), have expressed support for the movement. The former president said the protesters were "doing more to defend American freedom than our own leaders by far," during a rally in Conroe, Texas on January 30.
Vice reported that over half of the donations on the donation site originated from the US, according to the leaked data, which has since been removed online.
Other major US donors that were revealed in the leak reportedly include American software billionaire and past Republican Party supporter Thomas Siebel, who donated $90,000 to the Freedom Convoy, according to the data. Siebel did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Last week, an Ontario court held up funding for the Freedom Convoy by freezing $8.4 million that the group raised on GiveSendGo. Since then, Canadian authorities have begun targeting crypto donations to protesters. Previously, the convoy raised more than $10 million on GoFundMe until the platform shut the page down and refunded the money earlier in the month.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers for the first time in Canada's history after calling the protesters a "small fringe minority" only a few weeks prior. The Emergencies Act allows the government to temporarily override civil rights to break up the blockades of protesters who have flooded Canada's capital and taken up blockades across the country.
The Freedom Convoy has clogged city streets in Ottawa since convoys of truckers began rolling into the capital on January 21. Last week, members of the group blocked a vital bridge between Detroit and Canada, snarling international trade. Since, the protests have spread throughout the province into Windsor and Sarnia.
Canada's vaccine mandate for truckers went into effect on January 15. The new rules require US truckers to present proof of vaccination to cross the border and unvaccinated Canadian truckers to get a COVID-19 test and quarantine when they reenter from the US. The US imposed a similar mandate on January 22.