Tag: donation

Trump Secretly Funded Arizona 'Audit' With Million-Dollar Donation

Former President Donald Trump made a “secret” $1 million donation to the election audit conducted in Arizona following his false claims that the election was stolen from him, TheGuardian reports.

The audit was requested by Arizona GOP senators, and doubted by many of their colleagues due to the “wild conspiracy theories” it mirrored. An assertion “that bamboo fibers found in ballot sheets proved they had been printed in Asia” even caused some local GOP members to deem the probe a “grift disguised as an audit.

But nevertheless, the audit persisted.

Although the audit eventually proved baseless and unsuccessful, The Guardian reports that “one of the largest benefactors” behind this attempt to counter the 2020 election results remained a secret for nearly two years.

But watchdog group “Documented” was able to track funding for the failed assessment and eventually landed on Trump’s super PAC, Save America.

First, the group discovered that Cyber Ninjas, the Florida company that conducted the audit, was provided $5.7 million by far-right groups, and then given an additional $1 million from former Trump advisor and attorney Cleta Mitchell.

Still, questions around the origin of the $1 million remained unanswered.

The New York Times reports that in September of 2021, “unnamed ‘officials,’” as well as Arizona GOP senators who requested the election audit, adamantly denied Trump’s contribution.

However, with its research on many corporate, tax and campaign finance filings, as well as emails and text messages between Trump allies that were obtained by nonpartisan accountability group American Oversight, "Documented" managed to counter those claims.

The Guardian broke down the process of how the watchdog group traced the donation back to Trump.

Like many incidents surrounding Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020, tracing back Trump’s contribution to the audit starts with the House Select Committee.

The committee’s final report mentioned that Trump super PAC, Save America, donated $1 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) — led by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows — but did not disclose the origin or the reason for the money.

Further research revealed that Trump’s contribution possibly began around June 2021, as accountability group American Oversight tracked text messages between retired Army officer and “arch election denier” Phil Waldron and Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based company that conducted the audit.

Waldron texted Logan, “Kurt is going to talk to 45 today, about $.”

According to the Guardian, “Kurt” likely referred to Kurt Olden, an “election denying lawyer.” He continued, “Mike L talking to Corey L,” referring to CEO of MyPillow and devoted Trump supporter Mike Lindell and Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

A couple of weeks later, Waldron asked Logan if he had received a $1 million payment from Lewandowski. He texted, “Supposedly Kurt talked to Trump and they got 1 mil for you,” but he noted he “couldn’t verify who sent and received.”

According to The Guardian, the Federal Election Commission reported that less than two weeks later, on July 26, 2021, Save America transferred the $1 million to CPI. Two days later, a new group, American Voting Rights Foundation (AVRF) “registered as a corporation in Delaware.”

CPI donated $1 million to AVRF — the group’s first and only donation — in 2021, and although the date of donation is unknown, the clear relationship between the groups, the “timing and amounts” of the transfers, as well as the revealed text messages between Trump allies all leads to one culprit: Trump.

Furthermore, on the day AVRF registered as a corporation, Trump attorney Mitchell emailed Cyber Ninjas CEo Logan and put him in touch with the audit spokesperson, Randy Pullen as well as AVRF treasurer Tom Datwyler.

The Arizona Republic recently confirmed that Trump was notified of the process the whole time

GOP vice-chair of Maricopa County board of supervisors Bill Gates told The Guardian he is “disappointed, but not surprised” by the revelation.

“At the very least, it is highly hypocritical for the Arizona state senate to have allowed the audit to be funded in this fashion,” Gates said.

Ultimately, even after the great lengths Trump and his cohort of election deniers went to assist in the audit, the goal to overturn Arizona's election was never met. The Guardian reports that in 2020, President Joe Biden won Maricopa County, the most populated in Arizona and where the audit took place, by 45,109 votes.

Regarding the morality of the audit, Gates added that Arizona law states, “electoral candidates are not allowed to fund vote recounts which have to be financed with taxpayer dollars.” And although the audit was “technically not a recount,” it’s clear the intent was the same.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What are the Crossroads of the West Gun Show?

It is a trade fair in Ontario, California, where ammunition, rifles, and bullet-proof vests are displayed.

When did the mass shootings occur?

Mass shooting at a dance hall in Monterey Park occurred on September 21, and another shooter killed seven people at farms in Half Moon Bay two days later.

Was there a change in gun purchases after the mass shootings?

According to a vendor, purchases spiked after the mass shootings as people feared their guns would be taken away.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Gates Foundation Gives 50 Million To Ebola Fight

Gates Foundation Gives 50 Million To Ebola Fight

Washington (AFP) — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Wednesday it was pledging $50 million to help boost the fight against the Ebola outbreak as overwhelmed medical teams in west Africa struggle to contain the disease.

The foundation said in a statement it would immediately release funds to U.N. agencies and international organizations involved in the outbreak in order to “scale up” emergency efforts in affected countries.

The foundation also vowed to work with the public and private sector to help speed up the development of therapies and vaccines to tackle the deadly virus.

“We are working urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease,” said Sue Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive of the Gates Foundation.

“We also want to accelerate the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics that can help end this epidemic and prevent future outbreaks.”

Overwhelmed west African nations have called states of emergency across the region as they attempt to staunch the scale of the outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted an “exponential increase” in infections across west Africa, and warned that Liberia alone will face thousands of new cases in the coming weeks.

More than 2,200 people have died in the outbreak from more than 4,200 infections in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Nigeria.

AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso

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NRA Abandons Hunters In Favor Of Oil And Gas Corporations

NRA Abandons Hunters In Favor Of Oil And Gas Corporations

While the National Rifle Association is not best known for its environmental conscientiousness, its self-proclaimed status as “the number-one hunter’s organization in America” does give it a vested interest in preserving wildlife and its habitats. Since 2008, however, this interest has been slowly undermined by the oil and gas industry’s increasingly aggressive contributions to the NRA and other conservative sportsmen’s organizations. According to Matt Lee-Ashley’s recent report for the Center for American Progress, the NRA is joining oil and gas corporations in “reshaping American energy, land, and wildlife policy.”

Last week, Clayton Williams Energy Inc., a large oil company in Texas, made a $1 million contribution to the NRA. This large sum raised the suspicions of New York City comptroller Scott Stringer, who expressed concerns about “both the magnitude and the corporate purpose” of the donation. Stringer’s interest in the matter stems from his role as investment advisor and trustee to the $150 billion New York City Pension Funds, which have more than $3 million invested in the energy company. Given how little a group like the NRA has to do with CWE’s business, it certainly seems that there could be ulterior motives behind the money.

Last Monday, Stringer noted, “The reported contributions are extremely large for such a small company and seem intended to further the political views of its chairman and CEO rather than the interests of the company itself.” And it would appear that the political views of oil and gas companies across the nation are being furthered by their donations to sportsmen’s groups like Safari Club International (SCI) and the NRA.

In 2012 alone, six oil and gas companies — including CWE — contributed between $1.3 and $5.6 million to the NRA. In fact, CWE is the top contributor to the NRA outside of the firearms industry, and ranks as one of the top seven biggest donors overall. CWE’s generosity to the NRA continued despite their significant losses this year (the company is down $24.8 million, or $2.04 per share, according to its annual report).

As the oil and gas industry generously support sportsmen’s groups, they appear to be turning away from their constituencies in favor of the energy industry’s causes — specifically, mining, drilling, and logging in areas previously preserved for wildlife.

In 2011, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced the Wilderness & Roadless Area Release Act, which proposed removing “approximately 43 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) and Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs)” from federal protection. These lands would potentially be used for “timber harvests, oil and gas development, [and] motorized recreation.” Hundreds of wildlife managers and scientists, as well as sportsmen’s groups, protested the bill, calling it “an affront to a long-standing public process and our outdoor heritage.”

But despite the NRA and SCI’s supposed dedication to the interests of these individuals, both groups lobbied for the bill.

The bill failed in 2011 and 2012, but in January Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI) passed a similar bill out of committee (it will soon face a floor vote). Though the National Wildlife Federation called the new bill “nothing more than the sportsmen community being used as a cover to hide an attack on Wilderness, National Monuments, and National Wildlife Refuges,” Susan Recce — director of conservation, wildlife, and natural resources at the NRA — offered her support when she testified on behalf of the bill in front of Congress.

According to the website for the NRA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), the NRA-ILA is expressly involved in issues related to “hunting and access to hunting lands,” as well as “wilderness and wildlife conservation.” One would think that their involvement would be on behalf of their constituents who are interested in keeping their access to hunting lands and in conserving wilderness and wildlife, but their latest moves and lobbying efforts seem to suggest otherwise.

Hunters and anglers have demonstrated their commitment to maintaining federal lands and protecting wild animals and their habitats. A 2012 Colorado College State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll found that an overwhelming “92 percent of sportsmen – the majority of whom identify as politically conservative or moderate — believe that national parks, forests, monuments and wildlife areas are an ‘essential part’ of the economies of these states.” Moreover, around 60 percent of respondents “also opposed allowing private companies to develop public lands.”

In a separate poll conducted by the Bull Moose Sportsmen’s Alliance, 73 percent of hunters and anglers opposed the sale of “some public lands…as a way to help reduce the budget deficit.”

In spite of their members’ continued opposition to the selling of federal lands, the NRA and CSI have failed to accurately represent their members’ needs. An April report from the Corporate Accountability International and Gun Truth Project entitled, “Bang For Their Buck: How Seven-Figure Donations From Clayton Williams Energy Are Driving the NRA to Turn its Back on Sportsmen” makes it abundantly clear that the NRA and similar organizations have departed from their purported purposes, and are no longer supporting the causes they are meant to uphold.

With the continued influx of money from oil and gas companies, it may only be a matter of time before sportsmen and women across America will no longer have lands on which to practice their sport.

Karen Bleier via AFP

A Birther No More? Trump Makes Maximum Donation To Ted Cruz’s PAC

A Birther No More? Trump Makes Maximum Donation To Ted Cruz’s PAC

Donald Trump may not be sure if Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is eligible to be president, but he has no problem giving the Tea Party hero a chunk of his fortune.

According to a report in The Hill, Trump has donated $5,000 — the maximum legal amount under current election law — to Senator Cruz’s political action committee, the Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund.

If the PAC’s previous spending habits are any indication, Trump’s $5,000 will mainly go toward paying various political consultants.

Cruz PAC graph
Chart via Center for Responsive Politics

Although contributions make up the smallest part of the pie, Cruz’s PAC has donated $23,800 to nine politicians. Trump will surely be heartened to learn that two of them — Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — have joined his birther quest to prove that Barack Obama is not eligible to serve as president.

Cruz, who was born in Canada but is a natural born citizen because of his American mother, has also faced birther-themed questions. In August 2013, Trump himself answered a question about Cruz’s eligibility to be president by saying, “If he was born in Canada, then perhaps not.” (As usual, Trump is wrong.)

What convinced Trump to shift from birther attacks to writing checks? According to The Hill, he was won over by Cruz’s disastrously failed plan to force a government shutdown in the hopes of blackmailing Democrats into dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

“He took a stand recently, that if he had just a little backing — and Ted and I have spoken about this — from other Republicans … he would have negotiated one hell of a deal,” Trump said of the shutdown plan during a February speech at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner. “It might not have ended Obamacare, but you would have really gotten a big chunk out of it.”

Trump’s admiration for Cruz’s shutdown plan puts him in a small minority. Much like the idea of Donald Trump running for public office, the scheme was cheered by only a tiny segment of the American fringe — including Donald Trump.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr