Ian Hawes: 25-Year-Old ‘Dinner With Trump’ Website Owner Makes $1 Million, A DinnerWithTrump.org Statement, Attacks ‘Politico’


According to Facebook, more than 66,000 people are talking about Ian Hawes. That’s because Ian is being accused of pulling the wool over the eyes of some Donald Trump supporters who thought that Ian’s “Dinner with Trump” website was directly affiliated with the Trump campaign.

As reported by Politico, Hawes is a 25-year-old with no Trump ties who raised $1 million from folks wanting a chance to win dinner with Trump. The publication compared donaldjtrump.com to Hawes’ dinnerwithtrump.org website, the latter of which currently reroutes to an “American Horizons” website.

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[Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Images]

Meanwhile, Ian’s Twitter account is listed as private, with Hawes’ tweets listed as protected at the @ianhawes Twitter handle. Hawes is listed as a “registered genius” in his Twitter profile, along with Ian calling himself a board certified hacker and a grape soda connoisseur in Hawes’ Twitter description.

Hawes’ Twitter account also lists ianhawes.com as Ian’s website, but that website is not functioning at the moment.

Ian, who hails from Maryland, garnered the $1 million from 20,000 people. Hawes made use of Facebook ads to draw awareness to Ian’s website, spending more than $108,000 on the ads that offered a chance for dinner with Trump. That investment brought approximately $350,000 in donations. In turn, a large portion of those donations — $133,000 — went back to Hawes’ company, CartSoft LLC.

It isn’t known if the $133,000 that went towards media expenses for Hawes helped pay off the Facebook ads.

Meanwhile, Ian is fighting back against allegations that Hawes was running a big scam that hurt those who thought Ian’s website was directly affiliated with the Trump campaign. As reported by Politico, the Trump campaign sent Hawes a cease and desist letter.

No doubt, that’s why Ian’s “Dinner with Trump” website reroutes to the new website, which contains a statement from Hawes about the Politico article. In a piece titled “Statement Regarding Politico Article” published on August 29, Ian called the Politico article an “attack piece” on the super PAC that Hawes wrote was created to help Trump’s campaign.

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[Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Images]
Ian argued that super PACs are not allowed to have connections to the campaigns they support. Hawes wrote that he spent nearly $1 million on pro-Trump and anti-Clinton ads. Ian went on to argue against the way that Politico reported the amount of monies that Hawes raised. Ian also took issue with the publication, calling it a site that often attacks Trump.

However, these claims from Ian are likely cold comfort to those who feel as though Hawes took advantage of them in the way the Trump ads were presented.

Politico has been deceitful in how they’ve publicized our fundraising numbers. They have included the amount we’ve raised to date (a not-yet-public number shared with them upon their request) versus the amount we’ve spent on independent expenditures through only the month of June.”

Politico routinely attacks Mr. Trump, his campaign, his high profile supporters, and thousands of others that have supported Mr. Trump. In this case, they’ve attacked me personally, choosing to address our organization as a ‘scheme’ and using other weasel words to hurt not only the reputation of American Horizons, but also of my own reputation.”

“It should be no surprise that Mr. Trump has banned Politico reporters from his events due to their dishonest coverage.”

“Like Mr. Trump, I’m not a political insider. My occupation is in digital marketing. After the primaries, I felt a calling (like hundreds of thousands of others) to help Mr. Trump’s campaign. Now, American Horizons is one of the largest pro-Trump political action committees this cycle. It’s no wonder Politico saw us as a threat.”

“Thank you for your continued support, Ian Hawes. Treasurer, American Horizons PAC.”

[Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Images]

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