Some mega donors help Trump Tremendous PAC because it helps him as President

Former President Donald Trump may have lost support Black Stone CEO Steve Schwarzman, but a super PAC set to support Trump’s recent run for the White House, has quietly amassed a small group of mega-donors that could be key to funding their efforts to bolster his 2024 campaign.

Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC run by former Trump aides and allies, recently raised over $40 million, mostly from a massive donation from Trump’s PAC, Save America, according to a Federal filing Election Commission.

However, the most recent disclosure showing fundraising for the Super PAC from October 20 to November 28 also lists nine other individual contributions totaling over $900,000. A separate FEC filing, showing donations made in early October, records seven donations from six business leaders and one company totaling more than $3 million in support of MAGA Inc.

This small group of mega-donors came in support of the super PAC just before other influential financiers decided they would not support Trump’s 2024 presidential bid. Donors not supporting Trump’s campaign include Schwarzman, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, New York businessman Andy Sabin and billionaire Ronald Lauder.

Trump, who has been indicted twice by Congress and is currently under investigation by the FBI for his handling of classified documents, declared his candidacy on November 15. The Super PAC’s latest FEC disclosure shows it to be worth $54 million. A spokesman for the PAC did not respond to a request for comment.

The most recent major single donation, aside from Save America’s $40 million in November, was a $500,000 donation from BPH Properties, an Alabama-based company run by real estate titan Luther S. Pate, IV. Pate, also known as Stan Pate, did not respond to a request for comment. Government business records list Pate as President of BPH Properties.

Pate posted photos of Trump and himself to the Alabama businessman’s Facebook page just days before the November midterm elections. Pate wrote in a Nov. 5 post that he was with Trump at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, and said the highlights of the discussion were “Tuesday’s upcoming midterm elections, voter fraud, stolen elections, 2024 and more.” MAGA! “

BPH Properties’ contribution was received by the pro-Trump PAC on Nov. 9, just four days after Pate posted the photos, according to the FEC filing.

FEC records show that Pate also donated to at least one other pro-Trump PAC in previous election cycles. Pate has not registered a six-figure contribution to a federal campaign like the one his company recently made to the new super PAC supporting the former president in the past decade.

During Trump’s first run for the White House in 2016, Pate funded the anti-Trump super-PAC We The People Foundation. According to FEC records, the PAC ended up spending over $160,000 trying to defeat Trump during his first successful campaign.

An archived website titled Anybody But Trump, funded by the We The People Foundation, states: “America is great! Trump is gross.” According to NBC News, the PAC also paid for full-page anti-Trump newspaper ads in Mexico and South Korea.

The most recent FEC filing states that Splitco Holdings LLC donated $100,000 to MAGA Inc. in late October. The donation has a listed address that matches Houston-based Fertitta Entertainment, the conglomerate run by businessman Tilman Fertitta. The businessman owns NBA franchise Houston Rockets and hotel giant Landry’s.

Although the Texas Comptroller’s database contains no records of a company titled “Splitco Holdings,” there are records for a company with the same address and almost identical name called “CH Splitco Holdings.” The OpenCorporates database lists the managing member of CH Splitco Holdings as CHLN Inc., a company operated by Fertitta, according to other company records.

Fertitta has been a major Republican donor for years, according to FEC records. According to the filings, from 2018 to 2020 he presented three separate checks for $35,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee that supported the Republican National Committee and Trump’s failed re-election. The Rockets owner did not respond to a request for comment.

Fertitta attended a White House briefing in 2020 to meet with Trump to discuss Paycheck Protection Program loans, which were initiated during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. During the briefing, Trump called Fertitta a “great guy, great family, everything is great.” Fertitta told Trump and administration officials at the meeting that his company returned PPP funds because he didn’t want to appear as “the billionaire who took the money from the small business.”

Murray Goodman, a real estate executive and founder of The Goodman Company, gave the PAC $10,000 in late October, according to the FEC filing. Goodman has previously donated over $200,000 to Trump Victory. According to reports, his daughter’s wedding took place in Mar-a-Lago.

Carolina Olsson, an administrator at the Goodman Company, told CNBC that the donation to fund MAGA Inc.’s campaign to support Trump-backed Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker in the race for Senator Raphael Warnock’s D-Ga.

The PAC ended up spending at least $681,000 in support of Walker during the general election and nothing during the runoff campaign in which Warnock defeated the Republican nominee.

Anthony Lomangino, a recycling mogul, donated $100,000 to the Super PAC on November 4th. Politico reported in 2018 that Lomangino was a Mar-a-Lago member who donated $150,000 to a fund designed to defend Trump aides and allies enmeshed in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

Lomangino did not respond to requests for comment.