Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission with a demand to probe GoFundMe to determine "whether they've committed deceptive trade practices", Fox News reported on Sunday.
The senator told the broadcaster that "when people gave money, they gave money under the promise it would go to the Freedom Convoy, not to whatever left-wing political ideology GoFundMe and other Silicon Valley companies support".
"They are deceiving consumers and it is wrong", he said. "The Canadian truckers are heroes, they are patriots and they are marching for your freedom and for my freedom".
Cruz claimed that the protesters were defending not only Canada, but "America as well".
"That is courage on display that the government doesn't have the right to force you to comply to their arbitrary mandates. And they're standing up for freedom, and of course, big government hates it and is trying to crush them", he concluded.
The decision was also earlier criticised by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said that the state's attorney general is preparing to investigate the fundraising platform.
The so-called "Freedom Convoy" was organised last month to oppose mandatory vaccinations and quarantines at the Canada-US land border. A total of around 50,000 truckers from different parts of the country joined the convoy that arrived in Ottawa to protests the rules.
Donations were collected from over 120,000 people and about a third of them have remained anonymous, with other funds coming not only from Canada but also the US, UK, Poland, and Australia, according to CBS.
GoFundMe, however, received confirmation from the Canadian authorities that the peaceful demonstrations had turned violent in some places as participants were said to have blocked public areas and engaged in "other illegal activity".
Based on that, GoFundMe decided that the organisers of the "Freedom Convoy" violated the platform's terms of service by "promoting violence", and stopped the fundraiser on Friday.
GoFundMe said it would gradually unfreeze the collected funds and distribute them after a meeting with representatives of the "Freedom Convoy". The first million dollars will be allocated to the participants of a peaceful protest in Ottawa, and the rest will be transferred to reputable charitable organisations. Funds will be selected by the "Freedom Convoy" and verified by GoFundMe.
Following the GoFundMe statement, one of the protest organisers posted several video messages suggesting that supporters boycott GoFundMe and move to another fundraising platform, GiveSendGo. The company announced it is ready to accept donations for the movement and has already collected more than $2.1 million.