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timothy mellon
'Thanks to Citizens United': 50 Megadonors Have Put Over $1.5 Billion Into 2024 Election
The top 50 contributors "skew Republican" but the list includes donors to both major parties, an analysis from The Washington Post showed.
Aug 26, 2024
Just 50 donors have contributed more than $1.5 billion in total to the 2024 federal elections, The Washington Post reported Monday, based on an analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
The Post's top 50 list, which includes contributions reported by August 20, is comprised mainly of individual megadonors but also includes some organizations. Most of the contributions accounted for in the list have gone to super political action committees (PACs), which can accept unlimited funds from individuals and corporations, thanks to the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that loosened campaign finance law.
Monday's list led critics of the political system to lash out on social media, with one X user arguing that billionaire influence is undemocratic and leads to policies that hurt the working class, and another positing that it showed "capitalists bankrolling both capitalist parties."
Thanks to Citizens United and the Supreme Court.
Meet the megadonors pumping millions into the 2024 election https://t.co/PJHj74bm2U
— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 26, 2024
The Post reported that those on the list "skew Republican" and the top several individual donors on the list are in fact Republicans.
The top donor is Timothy Mellon, an 82-year-old billionaire who was heir to a banking fortune and has given $165 million in total this cycle. He contributed $125 million to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Inc. super PAC, which supports Republican nominee Donald Trump, and $25 million to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s now defunct campaign.
Kennedy withdrew from the presidential race Friday and endorsed Trump. Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who's now a a professor and progressive commentator, said the Trump-Kennedy union was no surprise, given that they shared the same "billionaire nepo baby" donor.
Number two on the Post's individual list is Kenneth Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund manager who's given $75.7 million this cycle, largely to congressional races. The top individual Democratic donor is Michael Bloomberg at $41 million.
The list's top organizational donor is Coinbase, a corporation that hosts a cryptocurrency exchange platform and pushes for deregulation of the industry. Coinbase made an $86 million contribution to the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which spent heavily to influence primaries in both parties. For example, Fairshake spent $2 million to help defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a progressive who was also the target of pro-Israel super PACs.
Coinbase is one of several cryptocurrency organizations on the list, as the industry moves to expand its influence in Washington. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump's running mate, reportedly has ties to cryptocurrency interests.
Super PACs aren't legally allowed to coordinate their electioneering efforts with campaigns but regularly do so, according to media reports, and in any case can wield great influence by, for example, buying advertising to support—or attack—a candidate. The FEC has also eased coordination rules for canvassing and paid materials.
Progressives have recently amplified their calls for campaign finance reform. Last week, OpenSecrets, a nonprofit campaign finance watchdog, released an analysis showing that super PACs had spent over $1.1 billion on federal elections through August 15, more than half of it on the presidential election.
OpenSecrets said this was roughly double what super PAC spending had been up until the same point in the 2020 cycle. The group found that MAGA Inc. was by far the largest super PAC spender so far this cycle, with about $125 million in outflows.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke forcefully about the need for a better campaign finance system in a speech at the Democratic National Convention last week.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections," he said. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
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As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here's the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both
Timothy Mellon, the reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune, has poured over $165 million into the 2024 election so far, with tens of millions backing both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Aug 24, 2024
Joining Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump onstage at a campaign rally in Arizona Friday night, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to emphasize what the two share.
"We talked about not the values that separate us, because we don't agree on everything, but on the values and issues that bind us together," Kennedy said shortly after suspending his independent presidential bid to throw his support behind Trump.
But Kennedy did not mention that he and Trump have in common the same billionaire megadonor, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune who has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 campaign thus far.
Timothy Mellon, the grandson of plutocrat Andrew Mellon, has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of both Trump and Kennedy, making the secretive billionaire the top individual donor to both.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets noted Friday in an analysis of Mellon's donations that the billionaire "made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc." in July, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.
"This brings his total contributions to the group to $125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies," OpenSecrets added. "Mellon's latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of what MAGA, Inc. raised in July."
As for Kennedy, his hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million from Mellon earlier this year. OpenSecrets observed that Kennedy is quoted on the cover of the billionaire's autobiography, "praising Mellon as a 'maverick entrepreneur.'"
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon. RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Friday that "it's no surprise" Kennedy dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon," Reich added. "RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Mellon is a member of a powerful group known as "guardian angels," a label "for big donors who supply 40% or more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor," OpenSecrets explained.
Spending from super PACs and other outside groups has topped $1 billion this election cycle, and the largest spender to date has been MAGA, Inc.
But U.S. billionaires, who are collectively richer than ever, aren't exclusively backing pro-Trump groups. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cut huge checks to Democratic PACs, and groups backing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have received large donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Netflix executive chairman Reed Hastings, among other rich executives.
In his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned the outsized influence of billionaire "oligarchs" on the U.S. political process, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections," said Sanders. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
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Billionaire Grandson of Gilded Age Plutocrat Gives Trump Super PAC $50 Million
Timothy Mellon is one of at least a dozen billionaires backing Donald Trump's bid for another four years in the White House.
Jun 21, 2024
Billionaire businessman Timothy Mellon, the grandson of Gilded Age plutocrat Andrew Mellon, made a $50 million donation to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC last month, a day after the former president was convicted by a New York jury on 34 felony counts.
Mellon had previously donated $25 million to super PACs backing both Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate. The New York Times noted late Thursday that Mellon, a reclusive GOP megadonor who has described safety net programs as "slavery redux," is "now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year's election."
"The grandson of Andrew Mellon peering out from behind a shrubbery to drop $50 million on an effort to defeat the strongest anti-monopolist element in government in decades is poetic," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote in response to Mellon's donation, alluding in part to the Lina Khan-led Federal Trade Commission's bold efforts to fight corporate consolidation.
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in his book on monopoly power and American politics that Andrew Mellon used his corporate empire and appointment as U.S. treasury secretary "to fuse government and business to make the world safe for monopolists."
"Unlike other tycoons, he did not specialize in one area. At one point, five Fortune 500 companies owed their lineage directly to Mellon: Alcoa, Gulf Oil, Mellon Bank, Carborundum, and Koppers. He controlled a network of ninety-nine banks. He had interests in coal, steel, chemicals, oil, sleeping cars, railroads, building construction, utilities, magnesium, and airplanes," Stoller wrote. "Mellon even commandeered the use of an entire element of earth—aluminum—through his control of the monopoly aluminum producer Alcoa."
Timothy Mellon's donation to the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC was the largest single campaign contribution this election cycle and accounted for most of the roughly $70 million that the pro-Trump outfit raised last month.
The Times reported that "within days of the contribution," the super PAC "said in a memo that it would begin reserving $100 million in advertising through Labor Day."
Mellon is one of at least a dozen billionaires supporting Trump's bid for another four years in the White House. The former president has solicited donations from fossil fuel executives and hedge fund investors, promising to deliver regulatory rollbacks and more tax cuts if he defeats President Joe Biden in November.
Trump has also actively courted casino billionaire Miriam Adelson—his biggest 2020 donor and a fervent supporter of Israel—with apparent success: Politico reported last month that Adelson is "planning to play a major role in funding Preserve America, a pro-Trump super PAC founded during the former president's 2020 reelection campaign."
"How much Adelson will donate to the super PAC is not clear, though the person familiar with her plans said the group was expecting to spend more than it did four years ago when Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon, donated $90 million to Preserve America," the outlet noted. "Their funds accounted for about 85% of what the organization raised in total."
Biden's campaign, meanwhile, has received roughly $20 million in donations from billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Washington Post reported Thursday that "the transfer of funds includes a $19 million check to FF PAC, an independent pro-Biden group also known as Future Forward, and a max-out donation of $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, an amalgamation of Biden campaign and Democratic Party committees."
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New Video Details Billionaire Trump Donors Bankrolling RFK Jr.'s Run
"Kennedy's donors know that he'll never step foot in the White House, but that was never their goal. Their goal is to ensure that Trump does."
Mar 27, 2024
A video published Tuesday by More Perfect Union sheds light on the ultrawealthy Republican donors to presumptive GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump's campaign coffers who are also financing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent White House run—which many observers see as a potential spoiler for President Joe Biden's reelection bid.
The video—which came as Kennedy announced that California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan is his running mate—underscores that the conspiracy theorist and former Democrat's biggest campaign contributor was also Trump's top donor in 2020.
"Who exactly is bankrolling RFK Jr.'s presidential push?" asked Brian Tyler Cohen, the popular YouTuber and political commentator who narrates the seven-minute video. "It turns out the answer has a lot more to do with Trump than putting a Kennedy back in the White House."
Kennedy said that he had nothing to do with the multimillion-dollar ad supporting his campaign that aired during the Super Bowl last month.
"American Values 2024, a super political action committee (PAC) backing Kennedy, dropped a cool 7 million bucks for the spot, which about 124 million people saw," Cohen said. "And propping up American Values 2024 is a large group of big donors... a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are driven by one goal: to get RFK Jr. on the ballot in all key states across the country."
"Doing a majority of the legwork here is the super PAC's biggest donor, Timothy Mellon," the video notes. "More than half of the $38 million raised by American Values this cycle has come from Timothy Mellon alone."
The video continues:
Mellon, who hails from the 34th-richest family in America, and likened anti-poverty programs to slavery, has long been a significant Reopublican donor. He's given tens of millions to Republican congressional super PACs. He's generously funded Trump's super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., to the tune of $16.5 million over the span of just two years. He was even Trump's top donor in 2020, and it doesn't look like he's going to stop tossing money at Trump anytime soon. His last donation of $5 million to the pro-Trump PAC came on January 30, 2024. Just 22 days prior, he sent the same amount to the pro-Kennedy PAC, making it pretty clear that Timothy Mellon doesn't want Kennedy, he knows Kennedy can spoil a Biden win, so he's keeping him afloat.
Boston Globe reporter Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka noted earlier this month that Mellon's donation record "is not linear."
"He has supported Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia; progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York; and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats before they left the party."
"But overwhelmingly, Mellon's money has funded conservative causes," she wrote. "According to The Texas Tribune, he donated millions in stock to Texas for a fundraising effort for a border wall. The Wall Street Journal reported he also donated more than a million dollars to a legal defense fund set up by Jan Brewer, then-governor of Arizona, for an immigration crackdown law that received national backlash and was partially struck down in the courts."
Mellon isn't the only GOP megadonor funding Kennedy's campaign. According to the video, billionaire security specialist and author Gavin de Becker has donated more money to Kennedy—$10 million, so far—than to any other cause he's ever supported. Kennedy's campaign has paid de Becker's security firm $1.9 million for services and travel expenses during the 2024 run.
Cohen said that "one of the more mysterious sources of funding" for American Values 2024 is Planeta Management LLC," which has given the super PAC $4 million."
Because there is no listed name for the organization's leader on its filing papers, "we have no idea who the third-biggest donor to Kennedy' bid is," the video states.
"We do know his fourth-biggest donor, though," Cohen said. Leila Centner—who has supported Trump and disgraced former New York Republican Congressman George Santos—has given $1 million to Kennedy's campaign.
The video notes that Centner is the co-founder and CEO of Centner Academy, a private school with a policy of "trying to keep teachers and staff from getting lifesaving Covid vaccinations" because she believes that "tens of thousands of women all over the world have had adverse effects including hemorrhaging and miscarriages just by being near someone who had the vaccine."
Perhaps the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptic, Kennedy
told Fox News last year that he still believes the thoroughly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. A 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa that killed scores of people, most of them children, has been linked to a prior visit by Kennedy in which he, his wife Cheryl Hines, and anti-vaccine activists spread deadly misinformation.
RFK Jr’s followers say, he’s going to change the world if he becomes President. I agree…
A world of death & destruction‼️
2019 — a measles outbreak hit children in Samoa. It became deadly after @RobertKennedyJr spread anti-vax fears. 👀 #Spoiler4Trump pic.twitter.com/OEUPp4zGA6
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) March 27, 2024
Kennedy has brushed off criticism about his donors' political agenda.
"The [Democratic National Committee] is saying that one of my PACs, which I have nothing to do with... accepted money from a traditionally Republican donor, that somehow it should disqualify me from people voting for me," he said last month. "We get money from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; I'm proud that we're reaching across party lines, that we're trying to bridge the divide."
The DNC has a dubious history of crushing third-party and independent challengers.
The new video notes that "all of these pro-Kennedy donations have so far been bearing fruit in a big way."
"With the help of American Values 2024, Kennedy has gotten on ballots in key states like Nevada and New Hampshire," Cohen said. "Additionally, he'll appear on the ballot in Hawaii and Utah... and Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, three critical swing states with razor-thin margins."
"Kennedy's donors know that he'll never step foot in the White House, but that was never their goal," he added. "Their goal is to ensure that Trump does."
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The Disgracefulness of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
At a time when the truth is a precious common good, RFK Junior has been spreading dangerous lies.
Feb 13, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy Junior has apologized to relatives after his Super Bowl ad last Sunday, which mirrored an ad broadcast by his uncle John F. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960.
The Super Bowl ad included images of RFK Jr. spliced into the original 1960 ad and a jaunty jingle that repeated the Kennedy surname 15 times in 30 seconds.
RFK Junior said the ad was the work of his SuperPAC and he had nothing to do with it.
Rubbish. Junior placed the ad at the top of his X feed, and it remained there Monday.
The ad cost $7 million. Timothy Mellon — grandson of Andrew Mellon and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune — gave RFK Junior’s SuperPAC $15 million.
Hmmm. Mellon is also a major donor to PACs supporting Trump. RFK Junior’s candidacy is backed by a PAC that also funds Marjorie Taylor Greene.
If not for his lustrous name, RFK Junior would be just another crackpot in the growing pool of bottom-feeding right-wing fringe politicians seeking to help Trump.
No one should doubt that Trump and Trump donors are behind RFK Junior’s campaign, with the goal of siphoning off enough votes from Biden to ensure a Trump victory.
How does RFK Junior intend to get on enough state ballots to hurt Biden? As he told CNN last week, he and officials from the Libertarian Party, which has ballot access, "are talking."
In a poll conducted late last year, RFK Junior was supported by 22 percent of respondents and a greater number of independent voters than either President Biden or Trump. In January, Gallup reported that 52 percent of Americans view RFK Junior favorably — a higher percentage than either Biden (41 percent) or Trump (42 percent) received.
These results reflect the popularity of the Kennedy name and dissatisfaction with the likely nominees of the major parties. In addition, RFK Junior has not received the public scrutiny that presidential candidates inevitably get.
It’s time to lift the curtain on a campaign based on false, irresponsible and self-contradictory claims.
At a time when the truth is a precious common good, RFK Junior has been spreading dangerous lies.
He claims that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
And that “the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons. They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”
RFK Junior has also promoted the baseless claim linking vaccines to autism. He’s been a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, erroneously suggesting the vaccine has killed more people than it has saved.
In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, he alleged, without plausible evidence, that Dr. Fauci performed “genocidal experiments, sabotaged treatments for AIDS, and conspired with Bill Gates to suppress information about COVID-19.” This is libelous nonsense.
RFK Junior’s misinformation about vaccines continues to endanger public health.
Friends, I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no Robert F. Kennedy.
I worked in Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate office in 1967. It wasn’t a glamorous job. I ran the signature machine. But I did have a chance to get to see Bobby Kennedy close up.
I watched Robert F. Kennedy stand up for economic and social justice. I witnessed him bringing together people of every race and ethnicity — to demand equal rights and an end to the Vietnam War.
The Kennedy brand is political gold, and it could pull away just enough unwitting Democratic voters to tip the race to Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy would never have suggested that a deadly virus was targeted at certain races. He wouldn’t have repeated the trope, dating at least to the Middle Ages, that Jews unleashed a plague on non-Jews.
Another contrast with his father and his uncle: In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in order to, in the words of a CDC report, “achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool children ... through intensive immunization activity.”
If not for his lustrous name, RFK Junior would be just another crackpot in the growing pool of bottom-feeding right-wing fringe politicians seeking to help Trump.
But the Kennedy brand is political gold, and it could pull away just enough unwitting Democratic voters to tip the race to Trump.
Democracy won by a whisker in 2020. Just 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin decided the outcome. If RFK Junior or any third-party candidate peels off just a fraction of the vote from Biden, while Trump’s base stays with him, they will deliver a victory to Trump.
That the good name of the Robert F. Kennedy I worked for 57 years ago is being used to increase the risk of a Trump victory is beyond shameful.
If Junior had any respect for the principles his father fought and ultimately died for, he would withdraw his candidacy immediately.
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