The amount Robert Mercer spent on politics in 2016 probably topped $30 million
by
Philip Bump April 5
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Billionaire Robert Mercer speaks on the phone during the 12th International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the Heartland Institute on March 23, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Oliver Contreras/The Washington Post)
We may never know how much money billionaire Robert Mercer put into political activity during the 2016 election cycle. For one thing, the definition of political spending is surprisingly nebulous. Does his co-ownership of Breitbart News during the 2016 campaign count? For another, some portion of Mercer’s spending probably went to “dark money” organizations, nonprofit groups that aren’t required to publish their donor lists but can spend money on political activity.
On Thursday, the Center for Responsive Politics
reported on one example of Mercer contributing to just such an organization. The group Secure America Now produced videos warning ominously about Muslim takeovers of France, Germany and the United States. The video below was published three days before the election.
The group received a bit over $5 million and worked with Facebook and Google ad sales teams to optimize the reach of the ads. They’re a good example of the gray area that such nonprofit organizations occupy: Although not explicitly calling for the election of Donald Trump, they don’t leave much doubt about their intent.
How did the Center for Responsive Politics learn that Mercer gave to the group if the group doesn’t have to report its donors? It called and asked, and was given a list of donors. Mercer gave $2 million.
So let’s figure out how much Mercer spent on politics in 2016.
We know that Mercer spent more than $49 million in 2016 (and the 2016 election cycle).
We know, too, that he has made investments in businesses he was involved in, although not necessarily in 2016. More on that in a bit.
That $49.8 million was split in two pieces. About $25 million was spent directly on politics, including that $2 million in dark money. An additional $25 million was donated to the Mercer Family Foundation.
Let’s break down the political spending (which includes contributions in the 2016 cycle — meaning also in 2015).
The biggest chunk, $15.5 million, was spent on a pro-Trump PAC called Make America Number 1. That’s not what it was always called; during the Republican primary, it was called Keep the Promise, one of several PACs dedicated to electing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) president. The Mercers, you may recall, switched to Trump in the middle of 2016. The campaign then started using Cambridge Analytica, Mercer’s data firm, to supplement its voter outreach and hired Kellyanne Conway from Keep the Promise.
The next largest investment was to a PAC associated with John Bolton, recently named President Trump’s third national security adviser. (Bolton’s PAC spent some of that money on Cambridge Analytica as well.) The $2 million spent on Secure America Now was the third largest expense from a PAC or campaign.
Campaigns, in light blue at the top of the chart, could accept only a few thousand dollars. This is one reason billionaires like Mercer give to PACs that do outside advocacy: There are no limits to how much they can spend.
We’ve named the other businesses to which Mercer may have contributed: Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica and a film-production company called Glittering Steel. We don’t know how much he may have spent with each company. Each, though, was engaged in 2016 politics. (Glittering Steel was paid by the pro-Trump PAC to presumably make ads, although some have
questioned that arrangement.)
Other political committees that received at least $100,000 from Mercer:
- Kelli PAC (affiliated with Kelli Ward), $700,000
- Warrior PAC (supporting Rob Maness), $600,000
- Fighting for Ohio Fund (supporting Sen. Rob Portman), $500,000
- Black Americans for a Better Future, $425,000
- Republican National Committee, $300,600
- Believe Again (supporting Bobby Jindal), $250,000
- Club for Growth Action, $250,000
- State Conservative Reform Action PAC, $250,000
- Team Ryan (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan), $244,200
- Campaign for American Principles, $136,000
- National Republican Senatorial Committee, $133,600
- Silver State PAC Inc., $100,000
Now let’s break out that $25 million Mercer gave to the Mercer Family Foundation. The nonprofit foundation files an annual report called
a 990 articulating where its money was spent. In 2016, it spent about $19 million — meaning that Mercer’s contribution alone covered the foundation’s outlays.
We can look at the foundation’s spending in four groups:
- Donations to conservative think tanks (in green below)
- Donations to organizations that bolster conservative political causes (in light blue)
- Donations to organizations focused on questioning climate science (the lightest shade of green)
- Donations to educational or arts groups (middle shade of green)
About $6 million of the Mercer contribution wasn’t spent. The biggest beneficiary of the money that was spent is
Donors Trust, an umbrella organization for conservative nonprofit organizations.
The next biggest recipient is the
Media Research Center, which works to undercut mainstream media reporting and boost conservative media. (Among other things, it operates the anti-mainstream media site NewsBusters.) Media Research Center is one of those edge cases: It polices what it considers liberal bias in the media, with the net effect of aiming to boost conservatives in politics.
The foundation also gave $2 million to the
Government Accountability Institute, which aims to expose corruption in government. A bit lower on the list is
Reclaim New York, a nonprofit organization that promotes engagement in local politics.
Other foundation donations went to overtly or implicitly political groups:
- $500,000 to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland
- $500,000 to a group doing voter registration at NASCAR races
- $250,000 to the American Conservative Union, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference
- $250,000 to the anti-union Center for Union Facts
In total, we estimate that $5.2 million went to such groups from the foundation.
In total, including money paid by the foundation, Mercer probably spent about $30 million directly on political campaigns, and gave to political PACs and nonprofit groups and through his foundation. (The foundation is directed by his daughter Rebekah Mercer, who works closely with Mercer on political issues.)
That number could grow, depending on whether other dark-money groups inadvertently reveal their donors to curious reporters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...on-politics-in-2016-likely-topped-30-million/
Trump’s billionaire backers funded these Islamophobic Facebook ads
The Arc de Triomphe bears an ISIL-French flag in the Mercer-backed video. (Screenshot/Welcome to the Islamic State of France)
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Written by
Max de Haldevang
Obsession
"America First"
April 05, 2018
“Welcome to the Islamic state of France,” a curiously accented woman says. The minute-long film proceeds to show a veiled Mona Lisa, a man being shot in the head, Notre-Dame cathedral turned into a mosque, and a Paris bistro closed for Ramadan.
This isn’t the sequel to Michel Houellebecq’s controversial satirical novel
Submission. It’s a political
ad, targeted at swing voters during the 2016 election via Facebook and Google, and funded in part by a top Trump backer, the secretive billionaire Robert Mercer, according to
an investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics NGO.
This wasn’t the only such ad that voters in Nevada and North Carolina had pushed on them. They were also treated to an imagined
“Islamic State of Germany,” where the Black Forest is riddled with mines, daughters are for sale, and beer and pork are banned at Oktoberfest. How did this happen? Germany allowing in Syrian refugees, we are told. More than a million people have watched the YouTube version of the video.
The
“Islamic States of America” promo is even less subtle. “Weak leaders who have allowed unsecure borders and Syrian refugee immigration enabled our Jihadi fighters to infiltrate and overtake America,” a robotic-sounding woman announces. LA’s “Hollywood” sign has been replaced with “Allahu Akbar,” gay people have to drink from lower water fountains than straight people, and the Statue of Liberty is—you guessed it—veiled.
Mercer, a former backer of Breitbart News, gave $2 million to little-known organization Secure America Now (SAN), which produced the videos, in 2016, according to
tax documents (pdf) obtained in the investigation. Ronald Lauder, heir to Estée Lauder, gave $1.1 million to SAN.
Bloomberg reported in October that Facebook and Google actively
worked with SAN to help target the campaign at voters in swing states and open Senate races. They reportedly racked up millions of views.
Mercer also
poured funds into Cambridge Analytica, the research company that gathered the data of 50 million Facebook users without their permission and used it to target potential Trump voters.
https://qz.com/1245777/trump-funder...aid-for-islamophobic-facebook-and-google-ads/
Robert Mercer and Jewish leader Lauder paid millions to target anti-Muslim ads at swing voters: report
DAILY SABAH
ISTANBUL
Published
Donald Trump shakes hands with Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, after a meeting on December 28, 2016 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. (AFP Photo)
Billionaire computer scientist Robert Mercer, a top Trump supporter, and Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress and the heir to the Estee Lauder fortune, spent millions of dollars for a secretive group that ran anti-Muslim campaigns on social media.
According to a report citing by the watchdog group Open Secrets citing IRS documents, the group Secure America Now gathered the money needed for its Islamophobic campaigns mainly from three donors; Mercer, Lauder and a pro-Trump secret money group called 45Committee.
Mercer has been under serious scrutiny over its role in bankrolling Cambridge Analytica's operation to improperly harvest information from over 50 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.
Secure America Now's ads, which were especially targeting voters from swing states like Nevada and North Carolina, featured mock travel ads showing western countries being occupied by Daesh, fueling fear and hatred.
In one ad, viewers are invited to "celebrate the arranged marriages of future jihadi soldiers" at a pork- and alcohol-free Oktoberfest in "Islamic State of Germany." Days before the 2016 elections, the group started sharing its final ad, in which the Statue of Liberty wears a burka and the Hollywood sign is changed to "Allahu Akbar."
The Open Secrets report said Secure America Now worked hand in hand with Facebook and Google to find target audience in swing states who were most likely to be receptive to their messages.
A Bloomber report published in October said "Facebook advertising salespeople, creative advisers and technical experts competed with sales staff from Alphabet Inc.'s Google for millions in ad dollars from Secure America Now."
According to the report, the group did not target the American people in general but focused on the voters that could play a critical role in choosing the next U.S. president and it did it with the help of Google and Facebook.
https://www.dailysabah.com/americas...target-anti-muslim-ads-at-swing-voters-report