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Tag: rebekah mercer
Campaign Finance Scandal Drives Wedge Between Bannon And Billionaire Patron

Campaign Finance Scandal Drives Wedge Between Bannon And Billionaire Patron

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

In 2016, the British data firm Cambridge Analytic (which supported Donald Trump during that year's presidential election) used Steve Bannon as its director of U.S. operations — and Cambridge had a billionaire backer in Rebekah Mercer. But now, according to the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger, Mercer is distancing herself from the far-right MAGA Republican.

"The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center alleges that the Trump campaign and a pro-Trump super PAC run by Bannon illegally coordinated through Cambridge to pump out millions of dollars in political ads for Trump," Sollenberger reports in an article published on November 16. "Brendan Fischer, director of reform at CLC, said the evidence generated in the closed investigation specifically strengthens their case against Bannon, who was named in the foreign national probe but was never questioned."Bannon and Mercer were allies in 2016. But now, according to Fischer, Mercer appears to be throwing Bannon under the bus.

"Federal election filings show the Trump campaign paid Cambridge Analytica $5.9 million in the 2016 cycle, and MAN1 reported paying another $5 million to the firm after the super PAC began backing Trump," Sollenberger explains. "It is illegal for campaigns and outside groups to coordinate election-related activity through a common vendor without appropriate firewalls in place. Fischer pointed out that Mercer, Bannon's former business partner and billionaire Cambridge financier, appears to have betrayed Bannon, with the right-wing mega-donor pinning the blame for any illicit activity on him."

Fischer told the Beast, "The response from Mercer's attorney was that Bannon was running the show, so the idea that he'd also been running both the super PAC and the Trump campaign — and that both of them were contracting with the firm Bannon had also been running just boggles the mind. These are not novel issues. It's anticipated in the law that a shared vendor might act illegally as a conduit between campaigns, but this is something we haven't really seen before."

According to Mercer's attorney, Mark Hansen, any problematic activity with Cambridge could not be blamed on her, but would lie with Bannon or Cambridge CEO Alexander Nix.

"While Hansen acknowledged that Mercer worked at 'a high level' in the organization," Sollenberger writes, "she had been 'simply swept in' with Bannon and Nix, he said. As the company's top executives, Hansen continued, it was Bannon and Nix who 'directed what CA employees did or did not do in their U.S. campaign work for US political campaigns.'"


J.D. Vance

Billionaire Linked To White Nationalists Backing GOP Senate Hopeful In Ohio

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance announced on Thursday that he would be running for the Republican nomination for Ohio's open U.S. Senate seat in 2022.

The seat is currently held by GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring. Vance is the seventh Republican to officially file for the election. Also currently running is serial failed Senate candidate Josh Mandel.

The seat is currently rated as "lean Republican" by the Cook Political Report, while Inside Elections says it is "solid" for the party.

In March, in advance of Vance's official campaign declaration, former Paypal executive and billionaire Peter Thiel donated $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC supporting Vance's candidacy. On Wednesday, just before Vance's announcement, the PAC released a digital ad in support of his campaign, which they promoted in an "exclusive" for Fox News.

Over the last few years, Thiel has been a prominent voice within the Republican Party. He was one of the featured speakers at the Republican National Convention in 2016, expressing support for former President Donald Trump's campaign, and donated to him through several super PACs.

According to a 2020 Buzzfeed report, as part of his effort to back Trump, Thiel reportedly hosted a dinner with Kevin DeAnna, a prominent white nationalist who founded the far-right group Youth For Western Civilization, in July 2016.

In an email sent on July 16, 2016, Thiel reportedly told DeAnna, "Really enjoyed meeting you last night." The email also includes the suggestion that Thiel was interested in further meetings with the white supremacist. According to Buzzfeed, DeAnna responded to Thiel, writing, "It was a real honor meeting you and thanks for hosting all of us."

DeAnna, the outlet noted, has written in favor of creating a white "ethno-state" which he said is "the great dream of the White Republic" in a 2013 column.

DeAnna is also a proponent of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which claims that immigration to America from nonwhites is a plot to replace white people. Writing about the conspiracy on the white supremacist site VDARE in July 2019, DeAnna claimed, "Westerners must wake to this demographic tidal wave lest their culture, people and civilization be extinguished."

More recently, elements of the conspiracy have been voiced by Republicans in Congress.

Thiel has not commented publicly on his reported interactions with white nationalist figures.

In addition to Thiel, the far-right Mercer family has also reportedly donated to the pro-Vance super PAC.

Bryan Lanza, a spokesman for the PAC, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Bob and Rebekah Mercer made a "significant contribution" to Protect Ohio Values.

The Mercers, who made their money from hedge funds, were also major donors to Trump's 2016 campaign. They helped to finance the right-wing outlet Breitbart, which has frequently trafficked in racism, sexism, and political smears.

Parler, the right-wing social network, was also financed by the Mercers, and Rebekah Mercer co-founded the company. The network was removed from the Apple app store in January after it became clear that some users had utilized it to organize the January 6 attack on the Capitol. It has since been restored.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Amazon Claims Right-Wing Social Platform Parler Is Concealing Owners In Legal Dispute

Amazon Claims Right-Wing Social Platform Parler Is Concealing Owners In Legal Dispute

Amazon has accused Parler, the right-wing social media platform formerly hosted on Amazon’s servers, of attempting to conceal the company’s ownership amid continued legal battles between the two companies. “This is a ginned-up effort to try to throw mud at Parler, when Parler has been completely clear about its ownership,” said Angleo Calfo, an attorney representing the platform. Parler asked a Seattle judge to force Amazon to reinstate the website in February, but the judge denied Parler’s request. Parler then issued a new complaint in King County Superior Court, which Amazon then asked to be...

Report: Robert Mercer And Daughter Rebekah Have Dumped Trump

Report: Robert Mercer And Daughter Rebekah Have Dumped Trump

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

President Donald Trump has reportedly lost the backing of one of his most generous 2016 donors: the wealthy Mercer family. Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman is reporting that according to multiple sources, the Mercers won’t be supporting Trump in his 2020 reelection bid.

The Mercers supported Trump aggressively in 2016, donating at least $15.5 million to pro-Trump organizations and $10 million to the far-right and overtly pro-Trump Breitbart News. Billionaire Robert Mercer used the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which he co-founded in 2013, to promote Trump’s campaign — and after Trump won the general election, Rebekah Mercer (Robert Mercer’s daughter) became a senior member his transition team. The Mercers donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

But according to Sherman’s sources, the Mercers have become disillusioned with Trump for a variety of reasons. One of them has to do with former Breitbart News Chairman Steve Bannon, who the Mercers brought to Trump’s campaign in 2016; after Bannon left the Trump Administration in 2017 and was “exiled” by Trump, Sherman explains, that “drove a wedge between Trump and the Mercers.”

The Mercers, according to Sherman, were also upset when Bannon was quoted extensively in Michael Wolff’s anti-Trump book Fire and Fury and made some comments that were critical of members of the Trump family. An anonymous source close to the Mercer family told Sherman, “Bob and Rebekah both felt so burned by Bannon and the negative publicity.”

In 2017, according to one of Sherman’s sources, Robert Mercer was pushed out as co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies — which the source said was “really spooked” by the FBI’s investigation of Cambridge Analytica.

A former Renaissance Technologies executive told Sherman that in 2016, Trump wasn’t the Mercers’ first choice for a GOP candidate — they preferred Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas but decided to back Trump after he received his party’s nomination and felt he would be preferable to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “They never really liked Trump,” the source told Sherman. “Trump was just Bob’s play against Hillary.”

Another factor in the Mercers’ decision not to support Trump in 2020, according to Sherman’s sources, is Robert Mercer’s reclusive nature. Robert Mercer, allegedly, likes cats more than he likes people, and he believed he sacrificed his privacy because of his support of Trump.

A source close to the Mercers told Sherman, “Bob views all his political spending as a bad investment. This whole thing did not end up well for them.”

IMAGE: Billionaire Trump donor Robert Mercer.