Donald Trump’s much-touted GOP midterm convention got an unexpected internet makeover this week, when a look-alike website that had been surfacing prominently in Google searches began sending visitors straight to the Justice Department’s Epstein files.
The site, gopdallas2026.com, appeared to offer information about next week’s Republican convention in Dallas, including registration, VIP experiences, and other event details. But by Friday, clicking the link sent visitors directly to the DOJ’s online Epstein library instead. The original version of the site has been taken down, but the redirect to the Epstein library remains online.
The website was not affiliated with the Republican National Committee or the convention. The real official site is gopconvention.com, which has remained online. The look-alike site nevertheless appeared prominently in Google results for searches such as “GOP convention Dallas,” at times ranking ahead of the official site, according to The New York Times.
The site appears to have been online since at least July, according to archived versions, and was still presenting itself as a convention information resource earlier this week. Its disclaimer identifying it as an independent site appeared in small print, while the rest of the page was designed to resemble an official convention hub.
GoDaddy, which provides domain name registration, shows the site was registered on July 7, and updated Thursday, but the owner’s name is private.
Nearly 140 other websites linked to it, including The Dallas Morning News, the Daily Wire, and even the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women, apparently before the misdirection began or before those linking to the site discovered it.
“Democrats are too broke to have their own midterm convention, so they settled for a sad, fake little website,” Zach Parkinson, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said in response to the incident.
Unnamed sources told The Daily Mail that the site was created by the creative agency TaskForce, which characterizes itself as a “cultural strategy and marketing agency.” TaskForce couldn’t immediately be reached for comment by the Daily Beast to confirm the report, but clicking on “taskforce.us” on Friday also linked to the DOJ’s Epstein library.
TaskForce’s actual website says it was founded in 2010 following Barack Obama’s HOPE campaign. Among its clients have been Rock the Vote, Amnesty International, the United Nations Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, and the Obama White House.
TaskForce’s founder Yosi Sergant commissioned the famous “Hope” poster featuring Obama. Trump critics later copied it, creating the popular “Dope” poster.
Sergant appeared to take credit for the stunt in a text to the Times. “We made you look,” he wrote, the newspaper reported. “Satire is such an important art form to draw attention to important issues, like the Epstein files.”
The first-ever Republican Party midterm convention is taking place in Dallas on Sept. 9 and 10.
GOP leaders claim the event will draw some 20,000 people, including the octogenarian president, Vice President JD Vance, and several other GOP leaders—but not first lady Melania.
Many Republicans are reportedly grumbling about the event, including the extra cost and the timing, when candidates should be out campaigning with the midterms looming.
