The campaign presentation of the first semester of the candidates for president produced figures and revelations. Among the most prominent is the financing of Robert F Kennedy Jr, Joe Biden’s main challenger in the Democratic primaries. Kennedy belongs to a family with clear party affiliations. But his positions on issues that divide waters and his own candidacy have particular support from sectors of the Republican Party. The novelty now is that some of these conservatives are capable of investing part of their fortune in the candidate’s project that aims to harm Biden.
According to documents filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission, most of the $9.8 million raised by American Values 2024, a super PAC that backs the Kennedy campaign, came from Timothy Mellon. This is a mega-donor of the Republican Party who accompanied Donald Trump for years and even financed Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s project to build a wall on the border with Mexico.
According to records, Mellon gave $5 million to Kennedy’s super Pac days before the anti-vaccine Democrat formally launched his campaign. Grandson and heir of the famous banker and former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, the donor of the anti-vaccine candidate has a profile as questionable as Kennedy’s. he wrote an autobiography in which he called welfare programs “reduced slavery” and described African-Americans as “even more belligerent and unwilling to help improve their own situations” in the 1980s.
Bannon’s propaganda in favor of Kennedy Jr raises suspicions of a pact to ask of Trump
After his contributions to Kennedy became known, Mellon cited in a statement the “bipartisan support” that Bob Kennedy’s son enjoys. A confirmation that he is more than just a competitor that restricts his support to the Democratic camp. “He is the only candidate who can unite the country and eradicate corruption. He is the only Democrat who can win the general elections,” Mellon said, in what seemed like a gesture of excessive optimism.
Kennedy is the first Democrat endorsed by the Republican magnate. In the list of his contributions in recent years, all were candidates for his party.
$20 million in contributions to America First Action, a super PAC that supported Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
$45 million for the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC associated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
$30 million for the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Mellon also contributed $53 million to an effort led by Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas to build a wall on the US-Mexico border, effectively funding the entire project himself.
A member of one of the wealthiest family dynasties in the United States, Mellon contributed nearly 98% of the fund’s total giving when he donated $53.1 million in stock to the state in August, according to public records.
Kennedy Jr receives support from big Silicon Valley executives to challenge Biden
As published Texas Tribune, prior to his Mellon donations, Abbott’s fundraising campaign had stalled at about $1.25 million. Mellon is the president of Pan Am Systems, a private freight and transportation company. His track record in the private sector is long and winding. In the 1980s, he founded a railroad company called Guilford Transportation Industries and renamed it in the 1990s after buying the brand from bankrupt Pan Am Airways.
Mellon had no explicit ties to Texas, but had been a major donor to the re-election campaign in which Trump made building a border wall one of his flagships.
As LPO recounted, Kennedy has one of his great defenders in Steve Bannon, the great Trump propagandist. The affinity between them raised suspicions of a pact between Kennedy and the former president to take away votes from Biden that could be decisive in a close contest. Now, with the appearance of Mellon as a donor to Kennedy, suspicions have grown as never before.
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2023-08-01 17:40:55
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