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Who is Joshua Hall? Pennsylvania DoorDash driver, 22, poses as Trump family to scam MAGA backers

The Pennsylvania man successfully scammed thousands of MAGA supporters in the name of a fake reelection campaign

Former President Donald Trump is known to have never been too fond of his media impersonations, having picked a bone personally with Hollywood star Alec Baldwin for caricaturing him countless times on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live'. But this makes one even more curious what the 45th POTUS will have to say about Joshua Hall, who is currently being charged with fraud after he successfully scammed thousands of dollars from MAGA supporters by impersonating Trump and his entire family.

The young Pennsylvania man, Hall, faces federal charges of fraud and identity theft after he duped his unsuspecting followers on social media to fund a fake re-election campaign. By impersonating Trump and his relatives, including his son Barron, Hall amassed over 100k followers on the internet via phony online endorsements that he carried on for a whole year. According to the criminal complaint against him, he used these thousands of dollars raised to fund his own personal living.

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Who is Joshua Hall?

According to federal prosecutors, between September 2019 and December 2020, a 22-year-old man from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, ran a scheme that "yielded thousands of dollars from hundreds" of MAGA supporters from all over the US. The man, identified as DoorDash driver Joshua Hall, is currently facing up to 22 years in prison after he was slammed with charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. 

During his grand, elaborate scheme that conned Trump-loving Americans, Hall allegedly also impersonated the former president's 15-year-old son Barron and falsely claimed he was a "friend and partner" of the ex-POTUS. Hall's other posts on the faux-social media accounts, as revealed by the FBI, also read: "Josh is an amazing patriot who is doing tremendous things for our great country. He has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!"

Hall had also fabricated numerous of these social media accounts "bearing family members' names and photographs", and last July, he finally crowdfunded what he falsely claimed were donations of “field organizing, events, and merchandise”, reveal the federal complaint. Hall maintains he "hadn’t seen a dime of that money personally", but prosecutors insist he pocketed the money instead.

Speaking with the New York Times late last year, Hall admitted, “There was no nefarious intention behind it. I was just trying to rally up MAGA supporters and have some fun.” Hall identified as a bisexual Trump supporter to the newspaper, elaborating how he had who had struggled to find work after he dropped out of college to chase dreams of becoming a conservative influencer.

The intent behind the fake accounts was to direct followers to his own personal Instagram — @TheBiTrumpGuy and towards the fake GoFundMe he set up under the name of 'Gay Voices for Trump'. Pretending to be the former president's brother Robert with the handle @BigRobTrump, Hall had written on the website "I am very much a heterosexual male. It’s the Trump genes — we love women. But we are trying to reach out to LGBT and other minority voters.”

'A grifting scammer just like him'

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said: “Hall led hundreds of people to believe they were donating to an organization that didn’t exist by pretending to be someone he wasn’t, as alleged. As we continue to investigate fraud in all its many forms, we urge the public to remain aware of the prevalence of online scams and exercise due diligence when making donations online.”

Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss said:  “Joshua Hall allegedly impersonated family members of the then-President of the United States on social media to fraudulently induce hundreds of victims to donate to a political organization that did not exist, and then pocketed those funds for his own use. We thank the FBI for their partnership in the investigation of this case, and we remain dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting fraud wherever we find it.”

On social media, some have also touted how Hall has the luck of potentially being hired by Trump one of these days. "A PA man pretended to be Trump or family to defraud hundreds, prosecutors said. Joshua Hall is charged with fraud & identity theft misrepresenting himself, soliciting funds for a nonexistent reelection organization to his 100K+ followers on social media. Trump will hire him," wrote one user on Twitter. Another alleged, "Trump would be proud of Joshua Hall, a grifting scammer just like him."