Liberal Forum

Newsweek-November 21, 2016

Since the Citizens United ruling in 2010, Robert Mercer he has given $36.8 million to super PACs.

Close to half of that PAC money—$15.5 million—went to Make America Number 1.

When that super PAC was formed in April 2015 (as Keep the Promise 1), it backed Ted Cruz, but in June 2016 it changed names and candidates, shifting to Trump.

At around the same time, one of its leaders, Kellyanne Conway, took on a major role in Trump’s campaign, as campaign manager.

Some two months later, another leader of that super PAC, David Bossie, joined Trump too.

Rebekah Mercer took over the super PAC.
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One of Mercer’s biggest and most intriguing investments was not in a nonprofit and does not appear listed anywhere—he gave at least $10 million to Breitbart News, according to someone involved in Republican fundraising circuits who asked that Newsweek not name him in order to protect his political relationships (he says he knows firsthand about the transaction).

Bloomberg reported the money was invested in 2011.

This past August, Bannon left Breitbart to help run the Trump campaign and is about to assume a vital position in the administration.
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Bannon critics can apparently blame Rebekah; she pushed Trump to bring him on board, the Republican fundraising insider says.
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The entanglements involving the Mercer family, the Make America Number 1 super PAC and the Trump campaign are confusing. They may also be illegal.

In a complaint to the FEC, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that defends campaign ethics, alleged in October that the Trump campaign paid Bannon and Conway illegally by funneling money to them through Make America Number 1.

FEC records show that after the pair joined the campaign, the PAC gave money to Conway’s polling company and to Glittering Steel, a film production company Bannon is affiliated with. (He is said to run the elusive company and wrote and produced two of its films, Clinton Cash and Torchbearer.)

According to the Campaign Legal Center, there are no records showing that Bannon or Conway received money from the Trump campaign in the first few weeks they were working for it—but $247,000 from the super PAC did go to Conway’s company during that time, and $15,000 went to Glittering Steel about a week before Bannon joined.

The Campaign Legal Center also alleges that the Trump campaign’s hiring of Conway and Bannon violated FEC rules because of their affiliations with Make America Number 1.

The center further alleges that the super PAC’s and the Trump campaign’s use of data company Cambridge Analytica—in which Mercer has invested—was also a conflict of interest.

“Super PACs by law are supposed to be independent of the candidates that they’re supporting, and that’s clearly not the case here,” says Brendan Fischer, associate counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.

The overlap seems to go beyond typical Washington, D.C., corruption, he adds.

“Thanks to a dysfunctional FEC, you’ve seen super PACs working more closely with candidates.... But what the Trump campaign has done with Make America Number 1, and the relationship between Trump and the Mercer family, does seem to be without precedent in modern elections.”

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