Rebekah Mercer is "one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement," says longtime GOP insider S [View all]

[riversedge]

I have not heard one word about money in elections yet. So so so many problems to fix

Link to tweet

?s=20



How one billionaire family bankrolled election lies, white nationalism — and the Capitol riot
Rebekah Mercer is “one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement,” says longtime GOP insider Steve Schmidt


https://www.salon.com/2021/02/04/how-one-billionaire-family-bankrolled-election-lies-white-nationalism--and-the-capitol-riot/



By Igor Derysh February 4, 2021 11:00AM (UTC)

Bob Mercer and Rebekah Mercer (Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

29

Four years before Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pumped his fist to a supportive mob that would soon overrun the Capitol Police and hunt lawmakers through the halls of Congress, the former Missouri attorney general needed a deep-pocketed patron. Naturally, he called on the man who helped bankroll former President Donald Trump's rise: hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, whom he would soon describe as a friend while name-dropping him to court support from far-right figures like Steve Bannon, a longtime Mercer ally. It's unclear what came of Hawley's meeting with Mercer, but the Club for Growth, which has received millions from the Mercer family, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which also got Mercer donations, quickly became Hawley's biggest financial backers, by far. Mercer's daughter Rebekah kicked in a near-maximum donation to his 2018 Senate campaign for good measure.

While Charles Koch and his late brother David have dominated Republican fundraising in recent decades, the Mercers' recent strategic investments in far-right candidates bought them a disproportionate level of influence in the Republican Party before culminating in an effort to subvert the election that fueled the deadly Capitol siege.


"The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Bannon told The New Yorker in 2017. "Irrefutably, when you look at donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs." Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, sees it differently. Rebekah Mercer, he said in an interview with Salon, is the "chief financier or one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement, and that's what it is."

Hours after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, killing five people and injuring dozens of police officers in a futile bid to stop the counting of electoral votes, Hawley joined with top Mercer beneficiaries in objecting to the results to back Trump's "big lie" that the election was somehow stolen. There was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whose super PAC got $13.5 million from the Mercers during the 2016 presidential campaign — before the family dropped another $15.5 million to back Trump. There was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., defending the majority of the GOP House caucus voting to overturn legal election results after his Congressional Leadership Fund received $1.5 million from the Mercers. And there was Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who received $21,600 from the Mercers before speaking at the rally that preceded the riot and objecting to the results. Brooks was later named by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander as having helped orchestrate the event, though his office said he has "no recollection communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is."

Alexander himself may have benefited from the Mercers' millions while working for the Black Conservative Fund, a small and mysterious group that received $60,000 from Robert Mercer in 2016. Though the group did not raise any money in 2020, it promoted the White House rally to tens of thousands of followers, according to CNBC.....................................