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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Mercers have bailed on the orange madman.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/why-the-mercers-trumps-biggest-2016-backers-have-bailed-on-himCRICKETS. THEYRE GONE: WHY THE MERCERS, TRUMPS BIGGEST 2016 BACKERS, HAVE BAILED ON HIM
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Jared doesnt like whats going on. He basically believes the RNC should be doing a lot better, a former West Wing official familiar with the conversations told me. According to this official and another source, Kushner wants to recruit Mike Pences former chief of staff, Nick Ayers, back to Washington for a senior position at the RNC to bolster the GOPs fund-raising. Jared wants Nick, but Ronna would protest that, the former West Wing official said. (The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the RNC said the group has a great working relationship with the team at the White House and praised McDaniel for fundraising records month after month.)
But a large part of the problem is that Trump has lost the financial support of one of his biggest backers in 2016: the Mercers. With their ties to Steve Bannon, Breitbart, and Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah were superstars last cycle. According to half a dozen sources familiar with the reclusive familys political activities, the Mercers have drastically curtailed their political donations in recent months and will likely not play a significant role in 2020. They think that the administration could do so much more. Theyve been very vocal about that to the president, a person familiar with the Mercers thinking told me. Its like theyve disappeared, the former West Wing official added. Crickets. Theyre gone, a prominent Republican strategist said.
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But the relationship was stress tested from the beginning of Trumps term. In March 2017, The New Yorker published an embarrassing profile of Robert Mercer, depicting him as an eccentric recluse. Five months later, Trump exiled Bannon, which drove a wedge between Trump and the Mercers, Bannons longtime patrons. Around the same time, Mercers support for Trump and Breitbart was outraging Renaissance employees and the funds investors, sources told me. (The hedge funds founder, James Simons, is among the countrys biggest Democratic donors.) In November 2017, Mercer was pushed out of Renaissance and he publicly transferred his stake in Breitbart to his daughters. A month later, the Mercers relationship with Bannon reached a breaking point when Bannon was quoted extensively in Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury criticizing the Trump family. Rebekah issued a rare statement distancing herself from Bannon. My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements, it read. Bob and Rebekah both felt so burned by Bannon and the negative publicity, a person close to the Mercers told me.
Meanwhile, the Mercers investment in Cambridge Analytica was putting them in legal jeopardy. A few months after Robert left Renaissance, it was reported that the FBI opened an investigation of Cambridge in the wake of revelations that the firm appropriated private data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles. Last May, the Mercers shut the company down. The Cambridge investigation really spooked them, said the prominent Republican strategist.
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Ding, ding, ding, ding. "The Cambridge investigation really spooked them" IMHO, I think this is why they are still out of the game.
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)They hope people will forget.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,349 posts)There are lots of investigations that should get some tv air time, which might throw a scare into lots of bold criminals in D.C.
Guess such reporting isn't as profitable as sensationalism.
Maru Kitteh
(28,341 posts)It looks as though they are hoping to lay low, save their arrows for another battle. I'm sure they are hoping in the future for a less-defective puppet to fund than this one.
Botany
(70,516 posts)... 2016 elections. They know what they did and so, The Cambridge investigation really spooked them, said the prominent Republican strategist.
Brother Buzz
(36,444 posts)Hell, for all we know, Russia may even be adding a turbocharger to the software for additional horsepower.
Yet there's no conspiracy, don't you know?
Botany
(70,516 posts)... Ukraine's Alfa Bank/Putin? And how Facebook helped to weaponize information
that came in on the C.A. server and some of that information was the stolen computer
files from HRC & the DNC under the name of Wikileaks.
Brother Buzz
(36,444 posts)It's been sequestered away to a secret location and is not collecting dust.
Two bits says the orange anus stopped payment on the leased software, too.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Other than a link to Alfa Bank.
I've been following that TT Server story pretty closely all along.
Here's a couple articles worth reading ...
Last November:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/was-there-a-connection-between-a-russian-bank-and-the-trump-campaign
Last Month
https://time.com/5592739/donald-trump-petr-aven-alfa-bank/
Bottom-line, we (sadly) still really don't know shit about 'what it was doing'. Certainly nothing close to the way you're describing it.
No Offense
90-percent
(6,829 posts)is in the farmers fields near the subdivisions of my youth. Had to cross the Long Island Railroad tracks to get to the closest strip mall. I attended the grand opening around 1964. Robert attended Stony Brook doing math/computer probably at close to the same time my brother in law was working on his math phd?
Mercer certainly fits the "evil genius" of the morbidly wealthy fascists we have that hate Democracy. He has a $100,000 (?) HO train layout, but, he's still despicable.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Renaissance+Technologies
-90% Jimmy
Solomon
(12,310 posts)They'll be back when the time comes.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)Elizabeth Warren (OR ANY OF OUR OTHER FINE CANDIDATES) becoming President starts to look like stark reality.
njhoneybadger
(3,910 posts)Javaman
(62,530 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)StarryNite
(9,446 posts)are still very pro tRump.
Lucky Luciano
(11,257 posts)StarryNite
(9,446 posts)But they love tRump!!! So who knows, maybe somehow they're related?
CanonRay
(14,104 posts)neohippie
(1,142 posts)They created militarized psychographics tools that I'm afraid are still being used, probably from outside the US now. Wasn't there a lot of interest in harnessing that power. I'll bet we just hear less about it now, that the cat's out of the bag
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Tech
(1,771 posts)How much more damage needs to be done to America for the obscenely rich to be happy?
moonseller66
(430 posts)sooner or later these "wealthies" will turn on each other and fight amongst themselves as the ultimate quest for power.
I wouldn't put down the idea that one of the .1% envisions themself becoming the "Ruler of the World!"
Power corrupts...but it really needs money's help. And to have ALL the money means all the power especially over your competition.
MLAA
(17,298 posts)I do hope they go to prison for their criminal and treacherous deeds.
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)Andy Wigmore, communications director of Leave.EU, said that Mercer donated the services of data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica to Nigel Farage, the head of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).
FakeNoose
(32,645 posts)DU ran stories last week that the Kochs might be donating to Democratic candidates wherever they can. Not sure how many Dems are interested, but it shows how little confidence the Kochs have in the GOP these days.
It seems Chump is losing "friends" by the barrel. Whether he had any friends before is a matter of opinion.
Crowman2009
(2,497 posts)...etc.) are costing them a fortune with no results. Not that give a fuck about the Kochs being ripped off.
Cha
(297,313 posts)erronis
(15,303 posts)If it's not dump it'll be some other mobster. I just hope the democrats can stay away from the glitter.