Inaugural donors

The Adelsons (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Chief among the top donors was Sheldon Adelson, a GOP megadonor and CEO of the largest casino company in the United States, Las Vegas Sands Corp. He doled out $5 million for Trump’s inauguration fund.

The donation was not only Trump’s largest inaugural contribution, but the largest individual donation made to any presidential inaugural committee. He and his wife, Miriam Adelson, also donated nearly $83 million to Republicans in the 2016 election.

In the past year Adelson has pressed Trump to follow through on his campaign pledge to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move Trump announced in December.

“The Adelsons reportedly have been disappointed in Trump’s failure to keep a campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem on his first day in office,” wrote the Las Vegas Review-Journal after Adelson’s October meeting with Trump. The paper is owned by the Adelson family.

(Home Depot CEO Bernie Marcus, who donated $7 million to Trump’s campaign effort but was not an inaugural donor, also has a vested interest in the region as founder of the Israel Democracy Institute).

But he is not the only inaugural donor who may have turned his contribution into special access to the administration.

In April, coal baron Robert Murray, who donated $300,000 to the inauguration, gave Trump a detailed to-do list of environmental rollbacks, according to The New York Times. Since then, the administration is on track to check off most of Murray’s wish list.

The son of R.W. Habboush, a Venezuelan lobbyist who donated $666,000 to the inauguration, sat in on meetings about sanctions on Venezuela.

In the past year, a series of Trump donors or their close relatives have also been appointed U.S. ambassadors.

Notable among them is Robert Wood Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets. Johnson donated $1 million to the inauguration. In August, he was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Joseph Craft III, president and CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, was another million-dollar donor to the inaugural committee. His wife, Kelly Knight Craft, was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to Canada in September.

Doug Manchester, owner of Manchester Financial Group and another $1 million inaugural donor, was nominated for a position as the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas in May. Manchester is now awaiting a re-nomination from Trump because of a Senate rule.

Campaign donors

Many of the top inaugural donors also donated millions in support of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump’s top campaign donor, Robert Mercer, the billionaire co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, poured more than $15 million into outside groups to get Trump elected. Mercer also donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel donated $1 million to Trump’s campaign efforts and $100,000 to the inauguration.

Each were top campaign donors and each held close relationships to the administration.

Of the more than $400 million raised to elect Trump, about $50 million was raised by Trump’s top 13 contributors (below) – many of whom have found themselves in the Trump administration’s inner circle.

Some like Linda McMahon, owner of McMahon Ventures and co-founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) empire, donated over $6 million to getting Trump elected. Much of that was donated to Trump-aligned super PACs, such as Future45 and Rebuilding America Now.

McMahon was later appointed administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

In 2009, Dallas banker Andrew Beal, who donated $2.1 million toward Trump’s presidential bid and $1 million for the inauguration, worked with Carl Ichan in an attempt to take control of the bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. Ichan served as an advisor in the early months of the administration until he resigned ahead of a story detailing potential conflicts of interest.

Others toted close relationships to the administration like Stephen Feinburg, who donated $1.5 million to campaign efforts and had a close military ear in the Trump administration. That was before ex-White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon’s departure from the administration.

Many of Trump’s top donors have stepped into the political spotlight in the wake of Trump and Bannon’s public feud.

Contributors like Feinburg, Thiel and Marcus – Trump’s second largest campaign donor – held close relationships to Bannon.

Some of them, such as GOP megadonors Adelson and the Mercer family, have since distanced themselves from Bannon in support of Trump. Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire daughter of Robert Mercer who runs the family business, severed ties with Bannon in a January statement to The Washington Post.

“I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected,” Rebekah Mercer said. “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.”

First mistake.

You all chose a side.

Second mistake

You fell for the hype.

Third mistake

Research involves LOOKING at EVERYTHING unbiased.

Fourth Mistake

You became emotinally invested.

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson was influential in Trump’s controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and he also lobbied Trump on the Iran nuclear deal. Turns out Adelson also has a connection to former PM Stephen Harper. The CBC’s Wendy Mesley interviews Ken Vogel, who writes about money and politics for the New York Times.

“Adelson, the tenth richest man in the world and the GOP’s largest donor, is known to use his money to influence policies on behalf of Israel.

After Trump tore up the Iran agreement, Adelson donated an additional $30 million to the Republican party, possibly the single largest single donation in U.S. history.”

“Adelson also influenced former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who endorsed Trump’s embassy action and anti-Iran move.

Mesley interviews New York Times reporter Ken Vogel, who says that Adelson has private meetings at the White House with Trump, Vice President Pence, John Bolton, and others.

Israel is at the heart of Adelson’s donations, who has been influenced by his Israeli wife. Vogel explains that Adelson is “the enforcer” for Jewish American donors who give a lot of money to Republican politicians. People are afraid to cross him.”  (America Knew)

On December 6, President Donald Trump may announce U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital while continuing to keep the U.S. embassy in in Tel Aviv. The move goes toward fulfilling his campaign promise, during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

It’s still uncertain if Trump will go through with this plan, but the pressure on Trump goes deeper than a promise to voters. His biggest campaign contributor, billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, is showing growing impatience with Trump’s slowness in moving the embassy, which would be a provocation to Palestinians who claim Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. For this reason, past presidents have refused to move the embassy on grounds that it would upset potential talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Before Trump was even sworn in as president, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, showed a remarkable willingness to follow directions from Israel’s far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The transition team appears to have worked at the request of Netanyahu to defeat a UN resolution criticizing Israel’s ongoing settlement construction. Reporting on Friday advanced the story, revealing that Kushner told former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to call members of the Security Council in an effort to stop the vote, a potential violation of the Logan Act, which criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S.

The Godfather. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Influence on Donald Trump

When the Trump White House hasn’t been quick enough to back Netanyahu or Adelson’s proposals, Adelson, who was reportedly in close contact with Kushner during the campaign, has been quick to express his displeasure.

Adelson, who once accused Palestinians of existing “to destroy Israel,” was reportedly “furious” with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in May for suggesting in a Meet The Pressinterview that moving the embassy should be contingent on the peace process. Axios reported:

[S]ources say the Las Vegas billionaire doesn’t buy the argument that the embassy move should be contingent on the peace process. He has told Trump that Palestinians are impossible negotiating partners and make demands that Israel can never meet.

Adelson and his wife Miriam spent more than $80 million on Republicans in 2016, and he gave $5 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Adelson and his wife Miriam also contributed $35 million to help elect Trump.

The Las Vegas Review Journal, which is owned by Adelson, wrote in October,

“The Adelsons reportedly have been disappointed in Trump’s failure to keep a campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem on his first day in office.”

And before the funder got on the Trump bandwagon, candidate Trump was outspoken about Adelson’s intentions in putting his money behind candidates. He infamously taunted Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who in October 2015 was a frontrunner to secure Adelson’s backing, tweeting:

"Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!"

As we’ve documented on LobeLog, Trump dramatically changed his message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, saying that he would move the embassy to Jerusalem and wouldn’t call for a freeze on the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank, as he closed in on the nomination and sought to secure Adelson’s support for his general election campaign.

Unconditional support for Israel is Adelson’s “central value,” according to Newt Gingrich in 2012, when Adelson was funding his presidential campaign’s Super PAC.

That statement is worth revisiting now as Trump weighs a policy announcement on Jerusalem where his most generous campaign supporter is pushing for a change in U.S. policy that threatens to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and seriously throw into question the viability of a two-state-solution.

>>1562560

Now we watch the show. How fast do you think the bots and shit can get in here.

I'll watch the UIDS climb. Interested to see how they spin it.

Amid continuing controversy over whether and how much Donald Trump owes his election to Vladimir Putin, it seems pertinent to ask whether he has other IOUs outstanding.

Although his consistent praise of the Russian leader—and now his angry denials about the allegations contained in the notorious “Kompromat” dossier—has dominated media attention, a major change during the campaign in Trump’s views concerning Israel and its government’s drive to expand settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has gotten almost no press at all. That such a change may have been encouraged by the man who turned out to be his biggest financial supporter by far has been largely overlooked. On Thursday, Sheldon Adelson visited the president-elect in Trump Tower, and yet still the media hasn’t taken note.

After all, it was nearly 15 months ago, in October 2015, that Trump complained in a tweet that, “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to [Marco] Rubio because he feels he can mold him into the perfect little puppet. I agree!”

The tweet’s lack of context made it unclear why Trump believed Adelson wanted to use Rubio. But it’s no secret that, as Newt Gingrich has said, the multi-billionaire casino magnate’s “central value” is unconditional support for Israel, particularly its right-wing leader, Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. And, indeed, Rubio appeared to be the favorite of hardline pro-Israel neocons—some of whom have benefited from Adelson’s largesse—amid the crowded GOP presidential field.

Trump Flirts with Neutrality

In fact, Trump did little to ingratiate himself with the same crowd in the early days of the campaign. At an early December 2015 meeting of the militantly Zionist Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), of which Adelson is a former chairman, co-founder, and biggest donor, Trump seemed churlishly defiant, suggesting that he would not accept any strings attached to their contributions.

You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians; that’s fine. …I do want your support, but I don’t want your money.

The reception he got there was less than enthusiastic. His refusal to offer his views on whether Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital elicited boos from the audience. It also didn’t help that Associated Press had published an interview with Trump just the day before in which he appeared to put the burden of achieving peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians on the former.

“I have a real question as to whether or not both sides want to make it,” Trump said in the interview, adding that his concerns were greater regarding “one side in particular. …A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal — whether or not Israel’s willing to sacrifice certain things.”

Two months later, during the Republican candidates’ debate in South Carolina, Trump pledged to make a major effort to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. In order to do so, he insisted that he had to act as an honest broker, which was presumably the last thing that Adelson wanted to hear.

“Let me be sort of a neutral guy,” Trump said, provoking rival Ted Cruz (reportedly the favored candidate of Adelson’s spouse, Miriam) to wax indignant over the front-runner’s position “As president, I will be unapologetically with the nation of Israel,” the Texan declared. Remarkably, Trump stood his ground, promising to give a peace accord “one hell of a shot” and reiterating his uncertainty about Israel’s intentions. “It has to be said that Israel has given a lot,” he said. “I don’t know whether or they want to go along to that final step (of making a deal)….I think it serves no purposes [sic] generally to say there’s a good guy and a bad guy.”

Comments such as these encouraged a belief that a Trump presidency would actually establish some distance between Washington and Tel Aviv or even be prepared to exert real pressure on Israel to make major concessions to achieve the long-sought two-state solution. After all, these statements were arguably of a piece with Trump’s denunciation of the Iraq war and the general notion that he was some kind of “isolationist” who, in any event, was not nearly as interventionist or pro-Israel as Hillary Clinton. The fact that Bill Kristol and many of his fellow pro-Likud neoconservatives led the “NeverTrump campaign” certainly lent credence to that view.

Trump Pivots to Pandering

On May 3, however, Trump gave an interview in London’s Daily Mail voicing strong approval of continued Israeli settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which most analysts believe will kill the possibility of a two-state solution. Asked whether there should be a pause in new construction, Trump replied,

No, I don’t think there should be a pause. Look: missiles were launched into Israel, and Israel, I think never was properly treated by our country. …They really have to keep going [in building settlements]. They have to keep moving forward.

That statement, which the major media largely ignored at the time, presaged the nomination of David Friedman, Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and a patron of the settlement movement as his future ambassador to Israel. Indeed, Trump’s expressions of fervent support for Israel, and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular, have only increased since the election. Most dramatically last month, he called President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at Netanyahu’s behest to persuade the Egyptian leader to withdraw his draft UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements. Subsequently, Trump has reportedly wanted to invite Netanyahu to attend his inauguration.

Trump is notorious for changing his positions. But this pivot seems particularly radical. At one point, Trump was mocking Rubio for being a puppet of Sheldon Adelson and declaring his own neutrality between Israelis and Palestinians in future peace negotiation. A few months later, he was expressing his support not only for Israel in general but for the Jewish settlement movement in the Occupied Territories and choosing Friedman, a promoter of the most extreme elements of the settlement movement and an avowed foe of the two-state solution, as his next ambassador to Israel. What happened in the interim?

The Adelson Connection

Trump’s speech at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on March 21 was a turning point. There Trump retreated into full panderer mode, repeating all the clichés—“no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel;” “unbreakable” bond; “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem”—that are de rigueur for aspiring Republican (and too many Democratic) politicians. That it was reportedly “written with a healthy dose of input by his son-in-law, the Jewish developer and newspaper owner Jared Kushner, and Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.”—and delivered with the unprecedented help of a teleprompter—suggested that something fundamental in Trump’s public views of Israel or the U.S. role in future negotiations had changed. Indeed, in contrast to his previous statements, he made very clear that the main obstacle to a peace agreement was Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism while Israel, on the other hand, was blameless. Trump has maintained this position to this day. The contrast with his unscripted RJC presentation was remarkable, to say the least.

Most likely, Trump’s pivot reflects the growing influence on Trump of both Kushner and Dermer—and the desire to gain the Adelsons’ financial backing. Both Kushner and Dermer have become critical conduits to the multi-billionaire couple who, despite Sheldon’s early support for Rubio and Miriam’s for Cruz, ultimately became Trump’s biggest financial backer. They contributed anywhere from $20 million to $35 million to support Trump’s candidacy, according to various published sources. Although that was considerably short of the roughly $100 million the Adelsons contributed to the Romney campaign in 2012, it was still more than the billionaire-candidate himself ploughed into his own election effort ($18.3 million, according to FEC filings).

According to the Wall Street Journal, Dermer, a native Floridian and long-time Republican activist, has worked as a key “liaison to influential Republican campaign financiers like Sheldon Adelson.” It was Dermer who conspired with the Republican leadership (behind the backs of the White House and the Democratic leadership) to invite Netanyahu to blast nuclear negotiations with Iran before a joint session of Congress in February 2015. He also helped arrange front-row balcony seats for the Adelsons and their entourage for the occasion. Dermer, sometimes referred to as “Bibi’s brain,” also spoke at the “Adelson primary” at the Venetian in Las Vegas in 2014, lending the forum a kind official Bibi blessing.

As for Kushner, whom Trump named on Monday as a “senior adviser” with a White House office, Politico noted back in July not only that his influence had risen sharply over the course of the campaign but that he had also emerged as a key liaison to …Adelson.

The young New York City real estate and media mogul, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has become the most powerful operative atop the campaign in the month since the candidate’s children banded together and forced the ouster of Corey Lewandowski and his ‘Let Trump be Trump’ approach.

Now Kushner is making key hires, fine-tuning and sharpening Trump’s speeches and serving as the central emissary behind the scenes, meeting privately last month with House Speaker Paul Ryan, having direct conversations with billionaire Sheldon Adelson and asserting influence on everything from Trump’s search for a running mate – he pushed hard for Newt Gingrich, large at Adelson’s behest – to his tweets.[Emphasis added.]

In the election’s aftermath, as Trump touted Kushner as a possible mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, The New York Times noted in a profile of the young heir that he “has become Mr. Trump’s intermediary with a variety of important Israeli and Jewish American players, including Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Dermer and wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson, the Nevada casino magnate. He brokered a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu in September and sat in on it.”

Kushner has neither been a frequent visitor to Israel nor has he publicly expressed his own views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the Times article reported that he has known “Netanyahu casually since childhood through is father, Charles Kushner, a real estate tycoon who has been active in business and philanthropy in Israel. And he is friends with Nir Barkat, the [rightwing] mayor of Jerusalem.” And Kushner’s family foundation, of which he is a director, has itself contributed to Jewish settlements on the West Bank. These settlements include Beit El, a radical religious community near Ramallah for which Friedman is the chief U.S. fund-raiser, and Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, which the Israeli government defunded for inciting “price tag” attacks on Palestinians. Earlier this week, Haaretz reported that the foundation has given several hundred thousand dollars to institutions sponsored by Chabad, adding that, “In Israel, the movement is affiliated with the political right wing, and its followers tend to be staunch supporters of the settler movement.”

The Adelsons themselves have supported the settlements through contributions to the Central Fund of Israel, although, like the Kushners, that support has paled in comparison to the tens of millions of dollars in philanthropy to hospitals and other institutions inside the Green Line as well as their backing for the Birthright program that sends thousands of young Jewish Americans to Israel each year. Adelson has never seemed bothered by the idea that Israel should annex most or all of the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem. In recent years, the couple has also been the biggest funder of the Zionist Organization of America, which opposes the two-state solution despite Netanyahu’s nominal support for the idea. Significantly, for the first time since the George W. Bush administration, the Republican Party dropped any reference to the two-state solution from its platform last summer, a reflection of the influence of Adelsons and the RJC, as well as Christians United for Israel and other Christian Zionist groups.

Early Courtship

Despite his taunting of Rubio for being Adelson’s “perfect little puppet” in October 2015 and his boasts of independence to the RJC two months later, Trump himself was actively pursuing Adelson’s financial support since at least that November. According to Politico:

…[S]ources close to the Trump campaign said that it went to great lengths to cast the candidate as an Israel supporter to appeal to [Paul] Singer [who opposed Trump until his election], Adelson and other similarly minded megadonors. In its interactions with Adelson’s representatives, the campaign highlighted a campaign ad Trump cut in 2013 urging Israeli voters to reelect their hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a favorite of Adelson’s. “We had really tried to promote Trump as pro-Israel,” the source said. “He’s always wanted Adelson money.”

Despite the embarrassment at the RJC meeting last December, the Adelsons apparently began courting Trump in earnest in just a couple of weeks later when the three of them met for a private get-together after which the casino magnate declared the candidate “very charming.” It’s unclear whether Kushner or Dermer were also present, but the main subject was Jerusalem and Israel. “He had talked about potentially dividing Jerusalem and Israel [at the RJC meeting], so I talked about Israel because with our newspaper, my wife being Israeli, we are the few who know more about Israel than people who don’t,” Adelson told Business Insider immediately afterwards. Trump was clearly pleased, tweeting: “Sheldon knows that nobody will be more loyal to Israel than Donald Trump.” They apparently kept in touch over the following six months as, one by one, the candidates who made support for Israel a centerpiece of their foreign policy platforms fell by the wayside.

On May 5—two days after the Daily Mail interview about Trump’s support for the settlements and three weeks before the Ohio primary that clinched him the nomination—Adelson announced his support for Trump, telling one reporter that he thought the presumptive nominee “will be good for Israel.”

Putin may indeed be holding some of the strings attached to the president-elect. But, as puppeteers, the Adelsons have likely attached a few of their own. Look for them at the inauguration next week.

>>1562687

You have alot to say. I have alot I would like to hear.

>>1562721

https://lobelog.com/has-trump-become-adelsons-perfect-little-puppet/

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/01/trump-donors-1-year-later/

>>1562560

Ty for link.

>>1562745

Putin isn't apart od either faction.

He is the third one.

You have no idea what is going on.

You just parrot bullshit.

I don't have the time or patience to catch you up.

Remove your head from their ass and go learn outside the box you have put yourself in.

>>1562814

If one. Just one. Choses to look and realize they and all of us are being played again. Then it's worth it.

But thanks! I really appreciate it and breathe a sigh of relief that not everyone is lost.

>>1562908

So you are trying to tell me that a man that has been hiding in an Embassy for years, away from his children. Revealing the Deepstate for the PEOPLE! Has now turned against everybody to attack Donald Trump.

A man who had his own t.v show, managed to tank 6 companies into bankruptcy but maintain being a billionaire, who was on Epsteins Island and supported and promoted Hillary in 2008.

This is what you are trying to convince me of? Julian Assange is now the bad guy and Trump is our saviour.

How long did it take you to manipulate your mind into that making sense and actually believing it.

>>1563019

That's all you got. That's it.

Can't say anything about the Island uh? I mean really how does anyone justify or make up excuses for being on pedo island.

Fuck off amateur. Fucking weak ass comment.

>>1563099

Are you fucking serious? Would YOU?

Would you go to a known pedo island to check it out? You fucking people come up with the most fucked up excuses. Are you mentally unstable?

Come in let's pack up your family and go on the fucking trout is bus to pedo island and check it out.

DO YOU THINK JUST ANYBODY GETS TO GO THERE?

Where are yoUR fucking braina?

Wait! Has he done anything about it?

NO!

SO FUCK OFF BACK TO DISNEY LAND.

>>1563198

Exactly. Someone is waking up.

When it comes out Trump is a pedo. Try not to die of a heart attack.

>>1563248

Trying to intimidate or be smart with a gun meme. Tells me your dick is no bigger than your baby toe.