2025
Convention of States Action, a dark money–fueled organization led by Tea Party veteran Mark Meckler that is pushing states to ask Congress for a convention. “It’s going to be good for the country. I don’t know what’s going to come out of it, but I think that is a space that allows us to have the conversation that I care about: What does it mean to be American today?” In 2023, Convention of States Action brought in around $10.6 million in revenue. About 30 percent of that—$3.2 million—came from one undisclosed donor, according to an audit report. Texas oil billionaire and Trump megadonor Tim Dunn sits on the board of directors of the organization. A friend of Meckler, Dunn is also a founding board member of its parent company, Citizens for Self-Governance, which has received significant contributions from donor-advised funds.
Possible $10m bribe from Egypt right before Trump took office in 2017. Barr killed investigation. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked former President Donald Trump to show proof that he never received any money from Egypt, following a recent report on a nearly $10 million withdrawal from the nation's state-run bank days before Trump became president in 2017.
23Jan2025: Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth paid his sexual assault accuser $50,000 in a settlement agreement with the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, according to a source familiar with the matter. In 2020. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5104122-hegseth-paid-sexual-assault-accuser-50000/
OpenSecrets reported that about more than 40% of the total money raised by Trump came from just 10 individuals in the country. Elon Musk contributed $277m through super PACs. https://truthout.org/video/citizens-united-allowed-44-of-trumps-election-to-be-funded-by-10-megadonors/
Trump makes $25B overnight. “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW,” the president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform. Those interested were directed to gettrumpmemes.com to purchase. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/18/trump-meme-coin-25-billion. From website: "Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol "$TRUMP" and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type. GetTrumpMemes.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency. CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of The Trump Organization, and Fight Fight Fight LLC collectively own 80% of the Trump Cards, subject to a 3-year unlocking schedule. CIC Digital LLC and Celebration Cards LLC, the owners of Fight Fight Fight LLC, will receive trading revenue derived from trading activities of Trump Meme Cards.".
Amazon gives Melania Trump $40m for her life story. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/10/melania-trump-amazon-documentary
Trump inauguration fund. Tim Cook gave $1m. The likes of Meta, Amazon, and Uber have donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. OpenAI’s Sam Altman also made a $1 million donation. Outside of Silicon Valley, companies including Ford, Toyota, GM, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Coinbase, and more have donated millions to the Trump inauguration fund. https://9to5mac.com/2025/01/03/apple-ceo-tim-cook-donates-1m-to-trumps-inauguration-fund/
Donations to Biden inaugural fund 2021: Meta=$1, Tim Cook=$0, Sam Altman=$1, Google=$200k, Amazon=$200k
Donations to Trump inaugural fund 2025: Meta=$1m, Tim Cook=$1m, Sam Altman=-$1m, Google=$1m, Amazon=$1m
Michael Best Strategies has represented the cryptocurrency firm Ripple for nearly four years. It has pledged $5 million in its own cryptocurrency, XRP. Robinhood, a leading cryptocurrency trading platform, has donated $2 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/us/politics/trump-inaugural-donations.html
2024
Ziklag, a network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump. ncluding the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA. “We are in a spiritual battle and locked in a terrible conflict with the powers of darkness,” says a strategy document that lays out Ziklag’s 30-year vision to “redirect the trajectory of American culture toward Christ by bringing back Biblical structure, order and truth to our Nation.” Ziklag’s 2024 agenda reads like the work of a political organization. It plans to pour money into mobilizing voters in Arizona who are “sympathetic to Republicans” in order to secure “10,640 additional unique votes” — almost the exact margin of President Joe Biden’s win there in 2020.https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election
Crypto: in September 2023, with the industry’s reputation at a low point, Brian Armstrong, the billionaire founder of Coinbase Global Inc., laid out a plan for crypto to gain power in Washington. Three months earlier, Armstrong’s company had been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which took the position that much of the trading that had been going on there for years was illegal. By the 2024 election cycle, Armstrong had easily surpassed his funding goal. Crypto companies had donated more than $200 million to Fairshake and affiliated groups, led by Coinbase with $75 million, making crypto the biggest-spending industry in politics. While Fairshake stayed out of the presidential race, other wealthy crypto executives—notably the Winklevoss twins and Jesse Powell, who founded the Kraken exchange—gave at least $25 million to back Donald Trump. And Trump soon flipped to embrace crypto. The tallies looked increasingly good, too, for Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican trying to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown, who’d called for hearings on crypto’s use by terrorists. Moreno was backed by $40 million from crypto companies.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-11-08/crypto-world-takes-victory-lap-after-big-us-election-bet-pays-off?srnd=phx-businessweek
Conway’s back-channeled criticisms of the 2024 campaign had been subtle but pointed; in an effort to placate her, LaCivita increased her monthly retainer at the Republican National Committee from $20,000 a month to $30,000.
72% of spending by billionaires goes to Republicans. Of the total $1.9 billion spent by America’s richest families on all federal campaigns, $1.36 billion (72%) went to support Republicans while Democrats were buoyed by about $413 million (22%). (The remaining 6% backed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid and other causes). Like their standard bearers, Republican congressional candidates generally back lowering taxes on the rich and corporations, while Democrats seek to raise them. The man heading up the richest billionaire family of all, Elon Musk, has spent $133 million. The largest share, $75 million, was used to single-handedly launch America PAC, which supports Trump. Musk has since given $44 million more to this super PAC. https://4taxfairness.substack.com/p/billionaire-clans-spend-nearly-2
Changes to Facebook’s rules for targeting political advertisements have hobbled Trump’s ability to wring cash from its users as effectively as he did during his rise to the White House. Campaigns can no longer directly target followers with fundraising appeals, nor target users by political views, making it harder and more expensive to prospect for contributors. The former president’s political operation has raised nearly twice as much money — $514.7 million — from donors giving $1 million or more to super political action committees, compared to the $260 million his campaign has raised from small-dollar donors giving $200 or less,
Separate FEC filings on Tuesday showed that Miriam Adelson, the casino magnate, singularly donated $95m to another pro-Trump Super Pac, Preserve America Pac. Fueled by eight-figure donations from Tesla Inc. and SpaceX’s Musk, Las Vegas Sands majority shareholder Adelson, former Marvel Entertainment chairman Isaac Perlmutter and his wife Laura Perlmutter and investor Timothy Mellon, four pro-Trump super PACs combined to rake in $337 million in the third quarter, more than the $218 million raised by super PACs whose spending is predominantly aimed at supporting Harris over the same period. Recent donations to boost Trump’s super PACs include another $25 million from Mellon, bringing his total donations to the super PAC to $150 million. The PAC also received $5 million donations from Linda McMahon, the co-chairwoman of Trump’s transition team, and former Primerica co-chief executive officer John Addison. Harold Hamm and his company, Continental Resources Inc., each chipped in $1 million.
Elon Musk gives $75m to America PAC, supporting Trump. Filings submitted by America Pac on Tuesday to the Federal Election Commission showed Musk donated $15m in July, $30m in August and another $30m in September. Musk remains the political action committee’s only donor. America Pac has quietly become the principal ground game partner for the Trump campaign, doing the bulk of the voter turnout work across the battleground states. 400 canvassers per state. In 2022, Musk spent more than $50m to fund anti-immigrant and anti-transgender advertisements by a group called Citizens for Sanity. The group’s officers are employees of America First Legal, a non-profit organisation led by the Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
The private equity firm run by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump, has been paid at least $112 million in fees since 2021 by Saudi Arabia and other foreign investors, even though as of July it had not yet returned any profits to the governments largely bankrolling the firm. Those are among the findings of a Senate Finance Committee inquiry into the operations of Affinity Partners, the Miami-based firm Mr. Kushner set up. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/us/politics/kushner-private-equity-saudi-arabia.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Melania Trump spoke at two political fundraisers for the Log Cabin Republicans this year, and she was paid $237,500 for an April event, according to former President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form. The payment was listed as a “speaking engagement.” the group does not know who paid her.
Trump funnels $28m to to his businesses: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/23/politics/video/invs-trump-funnels-millions-in-campaign-donations-into-his-businesses-digvid
Trump Media pays p to 5.1 million shares of stock — about $150 million at current market value — plus $17.5 million in cash JedTec LLC, owned by major Republican donor Louisiana energy magnate James E. Davison. Davison also owns owns a major stake in Genesis Energy. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-media-truth-social-jedtec-james-davison-conflict-of-interest?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature
Elon Musk Has Said He Is Committing Around $45 Million a Month to a New Pro-Trump Super PAC called America PAC. Other backers of America PAC include Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale and the Winklevoss twins. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/elon-musk-has-said-he-is-committing-around-45-million-a-month-to-a-new-pro-trump-super-pac-dda53823
The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and an allied super PAC (MAGA, Inc.) raised more than $170 million in May, including tens of millions that came in after Trump’s May 30 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The Trump-allied super PAC MAGA Inc. — which has been the main vehicle for pro-Trump advertising on the airwaves — took in an eye-popping $50 million donation from transportation executive Timothy Mellon a day after Trump’s conviction (who previously gave $25 million to the group and $25 million to a super PAC supporting independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/20/trump-conviction-fundraising-campaign-donations/
Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has reportedly pledged to spend more than $100 million to support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming general election Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-born physician who specializes in substance abuse, is set to finance a rejuvenated pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, which was initially formed for Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, Politico reported Thursday. The Adelsons contributed $90 million to Trump in that election cycle. Sheldon Adelson gave Trump $20m in 2016 in return for a pledge to move the Israeli embassy.
Timothy Mellon: Over nine months, Timothy Mellon gave $5 million donations that alternate between super PACs supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump. Mellon is heir to the family fortune of banking and industrial magnate Andrew Mellon. He has donated to many anti-immigration measures and was a major contributor to a Texas-led fund to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico. over nine months, he gave $5 million in donations that alternate between American Values 2024, which supports Kennedy, and Make America Great Again Inc., which backs Trump. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/03/timothy-mellon-rfk-jr-donor-trump/73534497007/
A dark money group called Citizens for Sanity, formed in mid-2022 with ties to Trump’s inner circle dropped more than $90m on ads described as vile, racist and transphobic in the second half of 2022 alone. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/17/trump-citizens-sanity-election-ads
learned that Trump Media received loans from a Russian bank to help the company stay afloat before it went public and at a time when no U.S. bank would lend to Trump.
Jesse Benton, a veteran political operative was convicted in late 2022. He had been charged with helping to orchestrate an illegal donation to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) for a Russian national, Roman Vasilenko. Benton’s consulting firm received $100,000. The operative created a fake invoice on which he said the fee was for consulting. He then arranged for Vasilenko to meet with Trump at a fundraiser without revealing his nationality to the campaign or the former president, according to court documents. Benton kept $75,000 for himself and used the remaining $25,000 to contribute to the campaign, according to a Justice Department release. He listed himself as a contributor for the donation, concealing the actual source of the funds when filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
In a letter received by Republican digital vendors this week, the Trump campaign is asking for down-ballot candidates who use his name, image and likeness in fundraising appeals to give at least 5 percent of the proceeds to the campaign.
“Beginning tomorrow, we ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5% of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC. This includes but is not limited to sending to the house file, prospecting vendors, and advertising,” Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita wrote in the letter, which is dated April 15.
They add: “Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations.”
Jeff Yass, the Republican political donor who holds a 15% stake in TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd., gave $8 million in March to a Republican superPAC. Protect Freedom PAC, which has backed GOP candidates in congressional races and Kentucky’s 2023 gubernatorial election. The group, which counts Yass as its most significant donor, began April with $10 million on hand that it can spend on the 2024 election, according to a Federal Election Commission filing disclosed Wednesday. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-10/billionaire-jeff-yass-earmarks-8-million-more-for-2024-election?srnd=homepage-americas
iHeartMedia had sent over $630,000 in payments to the Truth and Courage PAC (Ted Cruz) since March 2023, accounting for roughly one-third of the committee's total contributions in that timeframe. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/ted-cruz-podcast-iheartmedia-19373225.php
Trump donors coming back: oil tycoon Harold Hamm, sugar magnate Jose “Pepe” Fanjul, real estate mogul Howard Lutnick, megadonors Rebekah and Bob Mercer, wealthy business executives Todd Ricketts and Warren Stephens and real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, according to an invitation reviewed by The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/29/trump-billionaires-gop-donors/
The price of admission is $250,000, but many donors are giving the maximum contribution of $814,600 — which will be split between Trump’s campaign and other entities, including the Republican National Committee and a leadership PAC that pays many of his legal bills. It is being hosted by John Paulson, a billionaire investor backing Trump. Giving $814,600 gets a seat at Trump’s table.
Guo Wengui, an indicted Chinese businessman, pumped millions of ill-gotten dollars into the bank accounts of some of the most influential figures in MAGA World—including former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Jason Miller—according to a raft of documents filed in federal court in February. https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-mogul-guo-wengui-funneled-millions-to-bannon-fox-gettr-docs-show
Trump’s Save America committee donated $15,000 to the county parties in August 2022 — $5,000 each to the Republican parties of Chippewa, Florence and Langlade counties. They are the only donations Save America made to county parties in 2021 and 2022, campaign finance records show. Individuals and most political entities can give a maximum of $1,000 each to candidates for the Wisconsin Assembly under state law, but arms of political parties can give them unlimited amounts. The commission alleges that Steen, his campaign and three county Republican parties arranged to sidestep campaign finance laws by having donors give money to one of the county parties, which would then steer it to Steen’s campaign or his vendors, according to the records released Friday. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/wisconsin-ethics-trump-fundraising-charges/
anti-vaccine money: Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone — eight times what it collected the year before the pandemic began — allowing it to expand its state-based lobbying operations to cover half the country. Another influential anti-vaccine group, Informed Consent Action Network, nearly quadrupled its revenue during that time to about $13.4 million in 2022, giving it the resources to finance lawsuits seeking to roll back vaccine requirements as Americans’ faith in vaccines drops. Two other groups, Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance and America’s Frontline Doctors, went from receiving $1 million combined when they formed in 2020 to collecting more than $21 million combined in 2022, according to the latest tax filings available for the groups.
MONEY: Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg is a Ukrainian-born energy magnate who’s been a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s for decades. And in 2017, Vekselberg reportedly funneled $500,000 to an LLC (Essential Consultants) run by Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. vekselberg has ties to Tony Bobulinski, the main witness against Hunter Biden. https://www.thedailybeast.com/gops-star-witness-tony-bobulinski-in-hunter-biden-probe-has-ties-to-russian-oligarch?ref=wrap
MONEY: Tony Bobulinski: https://newrepublic.com/article/178960/republican-witness-hunter-biden-impeachment-tony-bobulinski-past
Vekselberg is a Ukrainian-born energy magnate who’s been a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s for decades. And in 2017, Vekselberg reportedly funneled $500,000 to an LLC run by Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, supposedly with the intention of influencing the new administration to let Russia illegally occupy parts of Eastern Ukraine.
2022
Peter Thiel contributes $10m to J.D. Vance Protect Ohio Values PAC. He also put millions into Saving Arizona PAC, to support Blake Masters. He contributes $35m to 16 candidates. 12 of them win.
2021
Biden inaugural committee: Lockheed Martin and Boeing, two of the nation’s largest defense contractors, gave $1 million apiece to the inaugural committee, FEC filings show. So did the ride-sharing behemoth Uber and telecom giants Comcast and AT&T. Google contributed more than $337,000 to the committee, while Amazon chipped in about $276,000. Bill and Melinda Gates are $250k each. National Football League, which gave $100,000, the American Federation of Teachers, which gave $250,000, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which gave Biden’s inaugural committee $1 million. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/549476-biden-inaugural-committee-raised-61m-with-big-sums-from-billionaires/
2019
Michael Flynn backed plan to transfer nuclear tech to Saudis. Just days after Trump's inauguration, backers of the project sent documents to Flynn for Trump to approve, including a draft Cabinet memo stating that the president had appointed Tom Barrack (prominent donor with ties to Middle East) as a special representative to implement the plan and directing agencies to support Barrack's efforts, the report says. : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/flynn-backed-plan-transfer-nuclear-tech-saudis-may-have-broken-n973021
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Kushner and Saudi Arabia: He was the broker of the largest arms deal since WW2 to Saudi Arabia. It was worth $110 billion straight up and $350 billion over 30 years. Kushner has a business background, it would have been instinct for him to pursue a brokers fee. Except as a rep of the US people its fucking amoral and illegal and he knows it, hence the denial. $2 billion (into his venture fund) in a $350 billion dollar deal that had very limited oversight on where the weapons went after, is NOTHING.
2018
In 2018, a Texas-based firm donated money to House Speaker Mike Johnson. That firm is 88 percent owned by three Russians
2017
In 2017, Andrew Intrater donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund and, a few months later, donated $35,000 to Trump’s reelection campaign. Intrater is a cousin of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for his connections to Putin. We know that oligarchs play an integral role in funding Russian influence operations. One oligarch revealed to special counsel Robert Mueller that Putin held quarterly meetings with his oligarchs to discuss strategic spending.