Politico: The heiress quietly shaping Trump's operation

[pitta12]

link

The whole thing is worth a read; another tangled web.  A couple excerpts:

Some of the biggest names on the right are jockeying for power in President-elect Donald Trump’s nascent operation, but one of the lowest-profile figures is arguably among those wielding the most clout — a press-shy hedge fund heiress who co-owns a boutique cookie bakery.

Beyond Mercer’s own direct line to Trump, she played a pivotal role in convincing him to bring into his inner-most circle several close allies whose efforts her family has financed to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, including incoming White House senior counselor Steve Bannon and top campaign officials Kellyanne Conway and David Bossie.

[WanderingWinoZ]

lovely...

Mercer’s influence in Trump’s transition effort — detailed here for the first time — calls into question Trump’s campaign trail boasts that his own fortune, which he used to partly fund his campaign, would make him independent from deep-pocketed donors and special interests he railed against on the campaign trail. And the entanglement of connections between Trump’s aides and Mercer’s big-money political operation has prompted complaints from campaign finance watchdog groups, and grumbling from Republican operatives who contend that Mercer has too much control over Trump’s GOP.

“It would be difficult to overstate Rebekah’s influence in Trump World right now,” said one GOP fundraiser who has worked with Mercer and people in the campaign. “She is a force of nature. She is aggressive and she makes her point known.”

Mercer has a coveted seat on the Trump transition team’s 16-member executive committee. Her work, which she does mostly from home, includes collaborating with conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society — to which she has steered a combined $4.7 million or more — to recruit appointees for positions at the under-secretary level and below, according to a transition team source.

[WanderingWinoZ]

1- bleh at political purity
2- BS, it's ALWAYS about the money, even if you want shti tons of it- exhibit A- TRUMP

She doesn’t want to make money, she doesn’t care about money. It’s all about controlling the apparatus of the Republican Party to enforce ideological purity.”

[WanderingWinoZ]

Nov 21, 2016 11:18:44 GMT -5 pitta12 said:

link

The whole thing is worth a read; another tangled web. 

OMG- i need an illustration to show all the $$$ flowing aroudn!  This is just nuts.

Good reporting politico!


The Mercer family in recent years has given more than $48 million to campaigns, committees or companies run in part by top Trump allies or advisers, according to a POLITICO analysis of filings with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, combined with interviews with people familiar with the Mercers’ political spending.



That includes a previously unreported investment of $5 million or more in Cambridge Analytica, according to a knowledgeable person, as well as a reported $10-million investment in the pro-Trump website Breitbart News.



It also includes donations by the Mercer Family Foundation, which is run by Rebekah Mercer, of $1 million to the Heritage Foundation (where she sits on the board) and $3.65 million to the Federalist Society, whose executive vice president Leonard Leo met with Trump last week.



Other Mercer Family Foundation beneficiaries include groups that had been helmed by Bannon and Bossie before they joined the Trump campaign, both of which inflicted significant damage on Clinton’s campaign. At least $3.55 million went to the Bossie-run nonprofit Citizens United, which successfully sued to force the release of emails related to Clinton’s tenure at the helm of the State Department. Another $2 million or more went to a Bannon-founded non-profit called the Government Accountability Institute, which produced the book “Clinton Cash” that drove attention towards overlaps between Clinton’s State Department and her family’s personal and charitable finances. Mercer also served on the board of the institute.