The Trump Conspiracy

Of how his money helped propel not only Donald Trump, but a man with links to the modern extreme far-right movement into one of the most influential positions in Washington - Trump's chief strategist.

And most chillingly of all, how white supremacists are now celebrating their “power” in Washington.

Or, as Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren put it, referring to Trump’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” and to fix “broken” Washington: “[Trump] isn’t ‘draining the swamp'. He’s inviting the biggest, ugliest swamp monsters in the front door.”

THE RECLUSIVE TYCOON

Six years ago a little known Republican managed to give his Democratic rival – who had held office for more than 20 years – a close run in the election for Congress. It sounds entirely unremarkable, but for the fact the Republican candidate Art Robinson was brand new to politics and initially had little money to spend on his campaign.

Robinson is a research chemist who some have called a crank. He heads the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a privately-funded centre which appeals for samples of human urine for analytical procedures that can “revolutionize the evaluation of personal chemistry – and thereby improve our health, our happiness and prosperity, and even the academic performance of our children at school”.

He is also known for expressing some unusual views over the years – including that nuclear waste could be diluted and sprinkled over land, and disputing that HIV causes Aids. He is also behind a controversial petition arguing against global warming.

US television commentator Rachel Maddow, on her MSNBC nightly show, says it was not surprising that Robinson stood for election. But she points out: “What was surprising about Art Robinson’s run for Congress is that it turned out to have a ton of money behind it. He was able to absolutely blanket that huge Congressional district of Oregon with advertising material. He was able to run very slick, very well-produced TV ads.”

The funder of the $600,000 adverts was Robert Mercer, a billionaire hedge fund manager in New York. Despite his enormous wealth, he keeps out of the public eye and few pictures of him exist. It is not even clear how much he is worth – although Forbes estimated he earned $150 million last year alone.

A profile of Mercer published in the Daily Beast earlier this year notes that a lawsuit filed in 2013 by his household help suggest he may be “unlikeable”. It alleged that staff worked as many as 65 hours a week without overtime and were financially penalised for ‘errors’ such as failing to replace shampoos and other toiletries if there was less than a third remaining in the bottle, failing to keep pictures straight on his walls, and failing to leave extra towels in the bathroom.

Mercer is also reported to have spent around $2.6million on the construction of a model railroad at his mansion in Long Island – and subsequently sued the builder saying he had been overcharged by around $1.9 million.

He is co-founder of hedge firm Renaissance Technologies, which is equally secretive – the company’s website says it can be accessed by invitation only.

The success of the firm – which is said to manage $25 billion of assets – comes from using computer programmes which can carry out super-fast trading. It has been involved in a long-running dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a series of trades which may have cut its tax bill by $6 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg Politics.

In a rare public appearance to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Computational Language, Mercer described himself as “simply a computer programmer”.

Why then, would he want to bankroll the election run of a first-time candidate in Oregon? The answer, Maddow believes, lies in the push by Mercer to dethrone Oregon congressman Democrat Peter DeFazio. Defazio wanted a transaction tax on financial trades.

“(Mercer) ran one of these Wall Street firms, hedge funds, that made its money by having high end computers…that orchestrated massive volumes of super-high-speed financial transactions,” Maddow said.

“At a firm like that, if you add on a transaction tax to every single individual trade – even if it was a really small tax – that might add up for a firm like that.”

In the end, Art Robinson won 140,549 votes, beaten by the 212,866 votes won by DeFazio. But that wasn’t by any means the end of the story.

Fast forward to the US Presidential elections in 2016. It was the first time in which so-called super political action committees – known as Super PACs – have played such a prominent role. These committees can raise unlimited sums of money and spend unlimited sums on advocating or opposing political candidates – but cannot directly donate money to their favoured candidate.

Previously individuals were limited to a maximum of a $5,000 donation – until a court ruling in 2010 meant individuals, corporations and unions could give unlimited amounts to a political committee. Thus the super PAC was born.

Questions have been raised over the impact of this system – not least by President-elect Donald Trump himself, who previously described them as a “disaster” and “very corrupt”. During one Republican primary debate he criticised his opponent Ted Cruz for his super PACS saying: “There is total control of the candidates. I know it better than anybody that probably ever lived."

Mercer was one of the biggest single Republican donors to the election campaign, according to figures from Open Secrets, a political research group, which show he donated $23.5 million. That was eclipsed by Trump's own spending, at around $65million.

Mercer was initially the main donor to the super PAC called 'Keep the Promise 1' which was supporting Cruz. But when Cruz dropped out of the race the super PAC was rebranded 'Make America Number 1' and focused on highlighting the “corruption” of the Clinton machine as Mercer threw his support behind Trump. The PAC also goes by the name 'Defeat Crooked Hilary' - one of the Trump campaigns mantras.

Carrie Levine, from The Center for Public Integrity, who has investigated Mercer’s political spending, said it was difficult to pin down Mercer’s motives as he “doesn’t want to talk about it".

She told the Sunday Herald: “He does have a reputation in Republican circles as being an ideological donor, of being someone who believes in small government and anti-establishment conservative causes. He has also given money personally to candidates running against incumbents who have crossed him on business tax issues.

“In terms of what his motives were [regarding] Cruz and Trump, I am guessing like most people it was a combination – he has the ideology he believes in and in many cases people believe the things that are good for their businesses are good for the country.

“I would guess it would be a combination of that, but until Robert Mercer himself starts talking about his motives, we are really not going to know for sure.”

THE MERCER-TRUMP NEXUS

Just three months before America went to the polls, it was suddenly announced that Trump’s campaign chairman had resigned from his position.

Paul Manafort stepped down just three days after two names were hired into top positions in Trump's team – Steve Bannon as campaign CEO and Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager. The move also came at the same time as Mercer switched his support from Cruz to Trump.

Conway was in charge of the Cruz 'Keep the Promise 1' PAC funded by Mercer, while Bannon is the former head of Breitbart News, a far-right news website which Bannon himself described as a “platform for the alt-right” - more of which later. Mercer is one of the top investors behind Breibart.

Meanwhile Mercer’s daughter Rebekah, took over the day-to-day running of the 'Make America Number 1' PAC in September this year as lead operative, despite having no formal political experience.

Conway is rumoured to now be in line for the role of White House press secretary. Bannon, was last week appointed as White House chief strategist and senior counsellor - making him one of the most powerful people in America.

Rebekah Mercer has been named as one of 16 member’s of Trump’s transition team – and has been dubbed the most powerful woman in the group.

Levine said Mercer and his daughter had been “stalwarts” in Trump's campaign and since he won the Republican nomination.

“They have stood by him in situations where others didn’t or where other big donors were reluctant to support him early on,” she said. “There is a saying here that early money shouts – and in getting behind Trump and staying behind Trump they have shown themselves to be on his side and support him and they will have influence going forward.”

This could already be seen, she said, in appointments of Bannon and Conway and other names rumoured to be in the frame for positions – such as John Bolton, a prime contender for Secretary of State, who has supported bombing Iran. Mercer is reported to have also donated to the John Bolton super PAC.

She said: “There are people who are in Mercer’s orbit who are clearly on Trump’s radar, how that will play out I don’t know yet – everyone is waiting to see.”

Bannon’s appointment has already proved particularly controversial after being welcomed by white supremacists. Take, for example, the response on the Neo-Nazi website Infostormer. It describes Trump’s new Chief of Staff Reince Preibus as “rather weak and low-energy in his support for Donald Trump”.

But it goes on to praise Bannon: “The Chief Counselor, on the other hand, usually has the ear of the President from day to day (and often moment to moment), and in the case of Steve Bannon probably second to second due to a personality that is almost a carbon copy of the President’s.

“Look for Bannon to wield great power and sway in this new Government of the People, and let us hope that his stances on the migrant invasion, Moslem filth, and Black subhuman crime rises above the beta compromise attitude of Mr Priebus.”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told broadcaster CNN the appointment of Bannon was “excellent”.

He said: “You have an individual, Mr Bannon, who's basically creating the ideological aspects of where we're going. And ideology ultimately is the most important aspect of any government."

Little wonder then, that others have expressed horror at Bannon’s appointment. Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders didn’t tiptoe around the subject when he issued a statement last week calling for Trump to fire him.

“This country, since its inception, has struggled to overcome discrimination of all forms: racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia,” he said.

“Over the years we have made progress in becoming a less discriminatory and more tolerant society – and we are not going backward. The appointment by President-elect Trump of a racist individual like Mr Bannon to a position of authority is totally unacceptable. In a democratic society we can disagree all we want over issues, but racism and bigotry cannot be part of any public policy.”

Democratic Senator Harry Reid also said this on the floor of the Senate last week: "In his first official act, Trump appointed a man who is seen as a champion of white supremacy as the number strategist in his White House. Number one – everybody else is under him."

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organisation which campaigns against hate and discrimination, has begun a petition also calling for Trump to rescind Bannon's appointment.

In a statement the president of the SPLC Richard Cohen said: “Stephen Bannon, a man who led a media empire into becoming what a former Breitbart editor called a ‘cesspool for white supremacist mememakers’ simply has no business in the White House.

“In July, Bannon boasted that Breitbart News was ‘the platform for the alt-right.’ The alt-right, as we know, is simply a rebranding of white nationalism and is the energy behind the avalanche of racist and anti-Semitic harassment that plagued social media platforms for the entire presidential campaign.”

THE INFLUENCE OF BREITBART NEWS

With Bannon now positioned in a top role in the White House, Breitbart News – where he is still executive chairman – has come under renewed scrutiny.

The digital site was originally founded by Andrew Breitbart, who spent time working as an editor with the Drudge Report before helping launch the Huffington Post. At first Breitbart simply provided links to selected wire stories, but came to particular prominence in 2011 after breaking the story of Democrat Anthony Weiner sending explicit photographs of himself to women.

Breitbart then began raising funds for an expanded news-gathering operation. While it has never made financial records public, Mercer has repeatedly been identified as one of the site’s major backers. But in March 2012, Breitbart collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 43.

Bannon, who at that time was a board member, became executive chairman a week later of the site which was gaining increased popularity among a right-wing audience.

In April this year, the SPLC noted that the site had undergone a noticeable shift towards “openly promoting the core issues of the alt-right”.

It added this is “much to the delight of many in the white nationalist world who could never dream of reaching such a vast number of people".

It noted Breitbart had always given a platform to the radical right but added: “Since 2015, Breitbart began publishing more overtly racist diatribes about Muslims and immigrants."

The SPLC has named Bannon as the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a “white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill”.

An editorial published in the New York Times following Bannon's appointment to the White House summed up the site as this: “To scroll through Breitbart headlines is to come upon a parallel universe where black people do nothing but commit crimes, immigrants rape native-born daughters, and feminists want to castrate all men.”

Examples of some of the most controversial articles published by Breitbart include one with the title “Political Correctness protects Muslim Rape Culture”.

It ended with the conclusion: “The Muslim rape culture is not a “dirty little secret” – it is widely recognized as integral to Islam as taught in the Koran and the Hadith. Like honor killings and other parts of Sharia, it will not be wished away. And like honor killings, with massive Muslim immigration on the horizon, it could be coming to a town near you all too soon.”

Another article has the title 'Hoist it high and proud: the Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage'. It was published on July 1, 2015 – two weeks after white supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine black people in a church in Charleston. The killer had posted photographs of himself online posing with a handgun and the Confederate flag.

Another Breitbar article has the title: “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy”. It stated: “Injectable birth control. IT MAKES YOU FAT” and concluded: “Now, you may be asking what I would have women replace the Pill with, since it’s obviously so awful. Condoms? Vasectomies? The answer is: nothing. We need the kids if we’re to breed enough to keep the Muslim invaders at bay.”

In the initial stages of the Presidential campaign, Breitbart was viewed as backing Cruz, but switched to pro-Trump coverage.

It has also had a prominent role in investigations related to Clinton, according to reports. Earlier this month the New York Times reported that an investigation of the Clinton Foundation was triggered by a book called Clinton Cash – written by Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer. It was also turned into a documentary film by Bannon.

This book was based on claims – adamantly denied by Hilary Clinton – that the Clinton family accepted donations from foreign donors at a time when the State department was considering whether to award contracts to groups connected to those donors.

An insight into Breitbart News comes from Milo Yiannopoulos, a senior editor, who is one of the site’s most prominent and controversial figures. He was permanently banned from Twitter in July after being accused of leading a wave of racist abuse targeting Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.

In an interview on Channel 4 last week he was challenged over telling offended women to log off the internet and saying mass Muslim immigration must stop or it will result in “rape culture”.

In response he said: “I delight in offending people. I think that the grievance brigade, victimhood – the idea that feelings are some kind of special currency - I think that needs to come to an end. And America agrees.”

He went on: “America has been ruled for 30 years by people that are too worried about what other people feel, not what other people think. And too worried about feelings versus facts.

“For decades, America has been run by the grievance brigade, by social justice warriors, handwringers, feminists, Black Lives Matter. All these groups are preoccupied with feelings first and facts later.

“They spread conspiracy theories and propaganda about the wage gap, campus rape culture. This stuff isn’t real.”

THE RISE OF THE ALT-RIGHT

A cartoon frog seems an unlikely symbol of the far-right. But in September this year the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate crime, added Pepe the Frog to a database of hate symbols, alongside other logos such as the Swastika.

The move was largely a result of Pepe being adopted and “twisted” by the alt-right, an ideology widely viewed as based fascist as it revolves around promoting white nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny.

The SPLC notes it has coined terms such as “cuckservative” – a combination of “cuckold” and “conservative” to castigate Republican politicians who are ‘selling out’ with support for certain 'liberal' ideas. It says this is a term which has a racist undertone implying that “establishment conservatives are like white men who allow black men to sleep with their wives”.

Campaigns have been organised in the alt-right movement around hashtags such as #whitegenocide, referring to the myth that white people are being eradicated as part of an orchestrated campaign and #BoycottStarWarsVII, to protest the black actor who was cast in a lead role in the 2015 Star Wars film.

But a much-condemned article on Breitbart News which billed itself as 'An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right' tried to argue this was an unfair image and the movement was full of "youthful energy" rather than "the dregs of society".

It stated: “The alternative right, more commonly known as the alt-right, is an amorphous movement.

“Some — mostly Establishment types — insist it’s little more than a vehicle for the worst dregs of human society: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set. They’re wrong.”

The article describes it as a previously “obscure subculture” which came onto the national political scene in 2015, and which has a “youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore.”

It goes on: “There are many things that separate the alternative right from old-school racist skinheads (to whom they are often idiotically compared), but one thing stands out above all else: intelligence.

“Skinheads, by and large, are low-information, low-IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred. The alternative right are a much smarter group of people — which perhaps suggests why the Left hates them so much. They’re dangerously bright.”

It goes on to name a man called Richard Spencer as one of the main influencers of the movement, who is credited with coining the phrase “alt-right”. Remember that Bannon himself described Bretibart as a 'platform for the alt-right'.

The SPLC describes Spencer as “one of the country’s most successful young white nationalist leaders —a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old, a kind of professional racist in khakis”.

His own words offer a chilling insight into his views. In 2014 he wrote in a column: “Immigration is a kind a proxy war – and maybe a last stand – for White Americans, who are undergoing a painful recognition that, unless dramatic action is taken, their grandchildren will live in a country that is alien and hostile.”

In an interview a year earlier with Vice he is quoted as saying: “Our dream is a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans. It would be a new society based on very different ideals than, say, the Declaration of Independence."

The Washington Post reported in July this year that he had been banned by Theresa May from entering the UK as he could “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK”.

And last week Twitter suspended his account as part of a crackdown on hate speech and harassment.

On Saturday, the National Policy Institute, of which he is president, was due to be hosting its annual conference in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, just over half a mile from the White House.

Speakers were listed as including Peter Brimelow, president of the VDARE Foundation, an anti-immigration hate website which regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, 'race scientists' and anti-Semites, according to the SPLC.

US radio host Glenn Beck, once a staunch conservative and former host on Fox News, spoke out last week to say he found the alt-right movement “truly terrifying”.

He said it accounted for between one and three per cent of the Trump vote, adding up to around 300,000 to 1.5million people.

But he added: “That is a lot of people, but it is not the Trump crowd – they are being influenced without knowing it.”