The Daily Beast has an explosive piece asking whether Trump campaign CEO and newly minted White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was illegally paid by a pro-Trump Super PAC during the campaign. On the face of it, that would seem to be about as blatant a violation of the rules against coordination between Super PACs and campaigns as could possibly be imagined.
But here's the theory not made explicit in this already explosive piece: What if Bannon is where he is—and let’s not forget that he’s set to have the ear of an actual President Trump, as ridiculous as that idea still may seem—chiefly because of this seemingly illegal deal?
If there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, it’s that this “billionaire” loves nothing better than a freebie.
Well, have you ever wondered how Steve Bannon got that gig with the Trump campaign in the first place? Sure, it was probably an attractive prospect to be able to commandeer Breitbart loyalists on behalf of the campaign. But Bannon was asking to take the reins as campaign manager without any previous campaign experience whatsoever. Granted, that didn’t stop Corey Lewandowski. But once Trump had made the decision to try to professionalize the operation, surely he would have had an eye out for someone with a resume to recommend him. But Bannon had none.
What he did have, though, was a deal the skinflint “billionaire” couldn’t refuse: the ability to offer himself up for the job at no cost to Trump personally, and at no cost to the campaign. He does so, though, knowing he will get paid, just from another source. Turns out, the source was a pro-Trump Super PAC which can’t legally pay him, because that'd be a flagrant violation of the anti-coordination rules. So they have to come up with some way of funneling the money to him that’s not immediately obvious. And hopefully (from their perspective), one that might even give them the ability to make some plausible claim at legality, should it ever come to that.
Importantly, this is not just any Super PAC. It's “Make America Number 1,” a pro-Trump Super PAC with a knock-off name, run by the father-daughter team of conservative mega-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer. (The Trumps, too, seem to be really, really into father-daughter pairings, one might observe.) Still, a Super PAC is a Super PAC, and Make America Number 1 can’t be seen paying Bannon directly.
But they had a plan:
The Campaign Legal Center says the new FEC filings undergird their case against the Mercers. Those filings cover the final weeks before Election Day, up until Nov. 5, and they show that a super PAC funded largely by the Mercers—Make America Number 1—paid Bannon’s moviemaking company, Glittering Steel, $187,500 during that window of time. The super PAC cut Glittering Steel five checks from Oct. 1 to Nov. 5: one for $40,500, one for $50,000, one for $37,500, one for $34,500, and one for $25,000.
Bannon’s moviemaking company?
Yes. The one that produced the movie version of Clinton Cash, as it happens. Yes, that one. And I’m sure the deal was pretty easy to arrange, too:
There’s scant public information available about Glittering Steel, and the company doesn’t have a website. Sources familiar with the company told The Daily Beast this month that it’s essentially a front for Bannon, and that Rebekah Mercer is also involved with it.
So, not only would the payment scheme itself be an illegal coordination, but it's also an illegal coordination on messaging. In fact, as an added bonus for Trump in the Bannon deal, he also got a free central theme to his general election campaign. The theme of Clinton “corruption” never stopped paying dividends—miraculously timed dividends, at that—throughout the fall.
Oh, and there’s one more Easter egg in here for you:
Rebekah Mercer, whose wealthy family has sought for years to reshape conservative politics with a populist, anti-establishment message, was named to President-Elect Donald Trump’s transition team.
Mercer, the 42-year-old daughter of New York hedge-fund manager Robert Mercer, will serve as one of 16 members of the team’s executive committee, the group said in a statement Friday. It’s a sign of how the Mercers’ longstanding effort to influence the direction of the Republican Party is paying off.
Robert Mercer made his fortune as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies, one of the most profitable hedge funds in history. Armed with her father’s money, Rebekah Mercer oversaw a pro-Trump political action committee that poured millions of dollars into advertising during the run-up to Tuesday’s election.
And two of the family’s closest political advisers, Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, guided the Trump campaign to victory over its final months and are now positioned for senior roles in the Trump administration. Through spokesmen, both Mercers declined to comment.
And yes, the Mercers took care of Kellyanne Conway on the side, too, in case you were wondering.
So, there you have it! If you were wondering just how Donald Trump could have plucked Bannon, seemingly out of thin air, and given him the shot that’s now landed him the role of whispering in his ear in the White House, it’s a pretty good guess that it came from engineering a deal the old grifter literally couldn’t refuse. And now the world may be stuck with a “white nationalist” (with a curious devotion to the leadership of a rival nation, oddly enough) with a finger in every pie for the next four years, as a result.
And now, the part where you wait three-plus years for the hopelessly deadlocked FEC to decline to recommend any action, thanks to an inevitable tie vote as between the equal number of Democratic and Republican Commissioners.