American Monster — Robert Mercer
American Monster — Robert Mercer
Eighth in a series on US criminals accelerating global fascism
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It’s a small story in a sea of epic fuckery, but one that bears repeating. Robert Mercer, who has used his money to damn democracy straight to hell, wanted to play sheriff. So according to media reports, he paid to play. Mercer, through his family foundation, donated $135,000 to the Yuma County, Colorado, sheriff’s department, and in return, he and his bodyguards received badges, swearing oaths “before the ever living God”.
According to a report in the Denver Post:
Some firearms enthusiasts seek out volunteer police badges to take advantage of a 2004 federal law that allows officers to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the country, trumping local gun regulations. Since the law’s passage, several police and sheriff’s departments have been found trading badges for cash.
When the Yuma County sheriff who was the recipient of Mercer’s largess lost his reelection, the new sheriff in town in 2019 revoked Mercer’s badge.
It’s worth noting, Mercer reportedly owns the world’s largest private collection of machine guns. After a Bloomberg exposé, a volunteer police unit from Lake Arthur, New Mexico, was disbanded and so was the police identification card that Mercer had obtained — which also came with national conceal-carry rights.
Why so worried, Bob?
Among those who received a badge from Yuma was a Mercer family bodyguard whose Linked In page claimed Russian special operation forces training and a post where he declared he bodyguarded for Fidel Castro, according to the Denver Post report.
It appears there are two sets of laws — one for the great unwashed, and one for the billionaires (or near billionaires).
The Myth of the Billionaire
I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend — that too many American billionaires or near billionaires have curious ties to the mafia state of Russia. Some have curious ties to Deutsche Bank. Many have curious ties to data mining, and some financed Trump. Like Putin, some actively used their resources to sabotage the presidency of Hillary Clinton, who in 2013 was voted the most popular U.S. politician, surpassing Obama and Biden, as well as leading Republicans, only to be the first politician to be virtually assassinated just three years later.
Robert Mercer checks all five boxes above. Although Mercer may just be a symptom of the rightwing’s effort to not let democracy get in the way of unfettered greed, his reach into our private lives reveals something far more sinister.
“Robert Mercer, one of the fattest and most venomous spiders in Putin’s global web of compromised oligarchs, is a supervillain puppet master,” RADICALIZED Truth Survives co-host Joshua C. Fidel, told Bette Dangerous. “He pulls the strings of so many operations and operators, from the data targeting systems of Cambridge Analytica (now Emerdata in the UAE), to the psychological warfare battleground of Parler (the largest of the pre-J6 radicalization echo chambers), to directing his lapdog Peter Thiel to engage in creating more mayhem and misery in the service of fascism. To those who understand this geopolitical game of thrones, Mercer ranks right near the top, with Usmanov, Rybolovev, or Deripaska.”
Mercer, a computer scientist who reportedly prefers cats to people, was the former co-chief executive officer of Renaissance Technologies LLC, a hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He stepped down after his name recognition grew for financing Trump’s presidential run.
Although he originally banked Ted Cruz, I always viewed that as a double bluff. His daughter Rebekah owned six apartments in a Trump property in the mid-aughts, as did a bevy of Russian oligarchs. Her ex-husband Sylvain Mirochnikoff moved money for Russians as a managing director for Morgan Stanley. RenTech’s first employees were Russian nationals, and reports from 2017 noted Mercer’s yacht parked next to the yacht of Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach property from Donald Trump for the record price of $95 million — about $50 million more than Trump purchased it for four years earlier. This occurred at a time when Trump owed Deutsche Bank $40 million.
It’s also important to note that Mercer injected millions into Breitbart News, which went from a conservative newspaper under founder Andrew Breitbart’s watch, to pro-Trump, anti-democratic weaponized hate — funding the careers of Milo Yiannopoulos — a former Breitbart editor and pedophilia advocate — and American Monster No. 5 Steve Bannon — the former Breitbart executive chairman, who used Mercer’s money to produce debunked anti-Hillary trash.
Mercer’s cash also financed Cambridge Analytica — a shell company for SCL Group, a private intelligence company in the UK deploying weapon’s grade psychological operations to interfere with global elections, according to ex-employees.
‘The Bloodstream of the Internet’
After the scandal broke that Cambridge Analytica harvested tens of millions of Facebook users’ private data without their consent, the company dissolved into bankruptcy, but as Fidel noted, its players continue under new names. Soon after the Facebook scandal, Channel 4 news aired undercover videos showing its executives bragging about using prostitutes, bribery, and honey pots to assassinate the characters of politicians they were hired to discredit.
They bragged on camera about creating the “Crooked Hillary” meme where the O’s were handcuffs and noted that they could do so anonymously and watch it enter the bloodstream of the internet.
“We put information into the bloodstream of the internet and watch it grow: no branding, unattributable, untrackable...”
—Channel 4’s Cambridge Analytica sting
And so “Crooked Hillary” was a lie built by a military contractor using information warfare to sway an election.
Financed by Robert Mercer.💀
Why is it okay for a foreign company to meddle in a US election or any global elections for that matter? That’s never been adequately addressed.
The words of ex-SCL employee Christopher Wylie will forever haunt me.
In his book, Mindf*ck, he wrote:
“We hired Sam Patten..He had just finished a pro-Russian project in Ukraine working with a man named Konstantin Kilimnik, a former GRU officer..Patten denies giving his Russian partner any data, it was later revealed that Paul Manafort (gave) voter polling data to Kilimnik.”
“Mercer looked at winning elections as a social-engineering problem. The way to ‘fix society’..If we could quantify society inside a computer, optimize that system, and then replicate that optimization outside the computer, we could remake America in his image...”
“Because he was backing a private co..Mercer wouldn’t have to report his support as a political donation..CA would be working to sway elections but without any campaign-finance restrictions that govern U.S. elections. His giant footprints would remain hidden...”
“We began developing fake pages on Facebook that looked like real forums and news sources with vague names like Smith County Patriots or I Love My Country. When users joined CA’s fake groups, it would post videos and articles to further provoke and inflame them…”
You know who else did that? Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, Russia.
You know who else worked in St. Petersburg? The head academic for Cambridge Analytica, who hoovered up our Facebook data. You know who else went to St. Petersburg to pitch a presentation? Employees of Cambridge Analytica.
Here’s a Guardian report from 2018:
Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University academic who orchestrated the harvesting of Facebook data, had previously unreported ties to a Russian university, including a teaching position and grants for research into the social media network, the Observer has discovered. Cambridge Analytica, the data firm he worked with – which funded the project to turn tens of millions of Facebook profiles into a unique political weapon – also attracted interest from a key Russian firm with links to the Kremlin.
Energy firm Lukoil, which is now on the US sanctions list and has been used as a vehicle of government influence, saw a presentation on the firm’s work in 2014. It began with a focus on voter suppression in Nigeria, and Cambridge Analytica also discussed “micro-targeting” individuals on social media during elections.
As Christopher Wylie wrote in his book: “The firm became a revolving door of foreign politicians, fixers..and businessmen with their scantily clad private secretaries..many were associates of Russian oligarchs who wanted to influence a foreign government… (and) seeking help to stash money somewhere discreet…”
Robert Mercer financed that.💀
Essentially, Mercer operates just like another Putin general in America — one that the media has gone out of its way to offer cover for with dopey headlines about Mercer no longer funding politics, which they later have to walkback with headlines such as “Mercer Family Played Bigger Role in 2020 Election Than Thought, Giving Nearly $20 Million to Dark Money GOP Fund.
No, duh. A f**king Google search of his foundation’s 990s reveals he never stopped funding rightwing extremism. An Open Secrets report noted he was a top funder of Secure America Now, which worked with Facebook and Google to target anti-Muslim ads at voters in swing states.
The filing shows the largest individual contribution, $2 million, came from Robert Mercer, the reclusive hedge fund investor who spent millions in 2016 helping Donald Trump capture the White House.
Like a reclusive spider, Mercer through his foundation — which is prohibited from interfering in election campaigns — donated generously to such anti-democratic orgs as the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Manhattan Institute, and Government Accountability Institute, which produced propaganda trash on Clinton. In November 2017 — The “Paradise Papers” — a trove of millions of leaked documents reviewed by The Guardian, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and others, revealed how Mercer used offshore investment accounts to shield investments made by the Mercer Family Foundation—which helped him build the $60 million war chest he used to blow up democracy —while also avoiding paying US taxes.
So what else did he finance? How about anti-vaxx propaganda, which also had its roots in Russian active measures. Where else was his money found? Lining the pockets of ‘anti-Fauci’ Scott Atlas, who pushed an unproven drug on US citizens when they were dying by the thousands — a sinister subplot included profiting off the unproven drug like pushermen.
So what else did Robert Mercer finance? How about Citizens United? The op that destroyed American politics with one SCOTUS ruling.
From Jane Mayer’s March 2017 profile of Mercer in the New Yorker — The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency:
Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said… major shift in American politics occurred since 2010, when the Supreme Court made a controversial ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That ruling, and several subsequent ones, removed virtually all limits on how much money corporations and nonprofit groups can spend on federal elections, and how much individuals can give to political-action committees. Since then, power has tilted away from the two main political parties and toward a tiny group of rich mega-donors.
Private money has long played a big role in American elections. When there were limits on how much a single donor could give, however, it was much harder for an individual to have a decisive impact. Now Potter said “a single billionaire can write an eight-figure check and put not just their thumb but their whole hand on the scale—and we often have no idea who they are.” He continued, “Suddenly, a random billionaire can change politics and public policy—to sweep everything else off the table—even if they don’t speak publicly, and even if there’s almost no public awareness of his or her views.”
Jane Mayer is among the brave journalists willing to write about Mercer’s role in subverting democracy by funding anti-democratic operations and the people like Steve Bannon and Milo “Gamergate” Yiannopoulos who run them.
We only know the depth of his villainy because of brave journalists, among them, Carole Cadwalladr, who wrote a February 2017 investigation for the Guardian which showed Mercer’s impact on Brexit.
One of the first profiles written about the shady so-called billionaire was co-authored by investigative reporter Scott Christiansen for McClatchy DC. Christiansen died two weeks after publication when a banister in his home collapsed.
Christianson, 69, died from massive head trauma after falling down the back stairs of his home. His wife, Tamar Gordon, said the banister had given way.—Times Union, May 16, 2017
When I began delving into Mercer’s background, I recall being told to stay away from windows and banisters.
Four years ago, I wrote an epic thread on all the curious commonalities Mercer shared with Putin. It was shocking, really. My opening tweet in the thread was:
GREED, CORRUPTION AND FEAR: A tale of two men.
Rabbit holes, shells and election interference, essentially lead to two men: Robert Mercer and Vladimir Putin.
Both obsessed with Hillary Clinton—her clear-eyed knowledge of who and what they are—clearly threatened their interests.
It’s an epic thread. I recommend all read it. When I got to the bottom of it, I had one of those cold-chill moments. I told my then partner that it appeared likely Mercer’s spectacularly over-performing and super secret hedge fund would benefit from more sunlight, if you know what I mean, and told him it was scary stuff, and I would bow out if he asked me to. And he said some of the most beautiful words that have ever been said to me:
“There are times in life when you have to publicly assert your convictions. This is one of those times.” And I kept reporting.
I called Dr. Ruth C. May, who authored the first in-depth investigation into Russian money dirtying up the GOP.
In the report she had made a note about Citizens United:
“The changes to our campaign finance laws created an avenue for Russia to influence our elections. There are holes in our firewall not on the internet.”
When I reached her, I discussed my findings on Mercer, and all his curious Russia ties, and she said:
“I’ve always regretted that our current securities laws do not require more transparency of hedge funds.”
And then I told her how RenTech was pulling money out of Deutsche Bank, which at the time had been subpoenaed by Congress for a closer look at its financials, and she said:
“Given RenTech used Deutsche Bank as its clearing firm, there might be a lot more interesting information on their books then we even know about.”
We discussed Citizens United, which she said represented a strategic threat to democracy.
She said it “was time to get rid of that thing. Dark money eats away at us every day from the inside out.”
And then she cautioned me to stay away from windows and banisters.
Mercer and his partner James Simons owed billions to the IRS. By helping to install Trump, Mercer earned billions — including off of the incarceration of immigrants at the border. Mercer and Simons settled their tax debt with the IRS two years ago, but by then, Trump’s useful idiotness had been so lucrative for billionaires and near billionaires that I’m sure they hardly felt it.
Among my first collaborations with retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil was my first investigation for Byline Times — The Tax Man Cometh: Robert Mercer, William Barr, and Trump’s Chinese Bank Account from 2020:
Marty described RenTech’s neat trick.
“Mercer purchased what’s known as a bunch of basket options from Deutsche Bank, which just magically converted about $14 billion dollars in profit,” Sheil told Byline Times. “They cut it in half by claiming it was long-term capital gains so it was taxed at a much lower rate, and he saved himself close to about $7 billion dollars.
“When you think about the transaction, a long-term capital gain, just to get in the weeds a little bit, requires that you hold the asset before you sell it, for at least one year and a day. Now, the transactions that RenTec was undergoing were high speed, buy-sell transactions where the stock or the instrument was held for not much more than nanoseconds as they tried to capture a few centime’s gap in time in those nanoseconds.”
What happened next is potentially evidence that the rich really are different.
“First of all, Deutsche Bank raked in a bunch of millions in terms of their fees for selling these options, and they did this after they had signed a non-prosecution agreement not to engage in any tax shelter type instruments. You can’t get a more tax shelter instrument than this,” Sheil explained. “So RenTec gets caught, the IRS says, ‘That’s bogus, you owe more than $6 billion, $7 billion in taxes, pay up Mr. Mercer, pay up RenTec.’ And he says, ‘No, you’re gonna take me to court. We disagree. These basket options are legit, and I can do this.’ So they go through all the different appeals, which drags out forever, and ultimately, Mercer goes to tax court, which should be the endgame. It sits in tax court for years.”
Normally, Sheil explained, the IRS is constantly trying to settle at each level of appeal, primarily due to limited resources and the pressure to get the most bang for its buck. “Mercer and his attorneys and accountants know this so they drag it out, and drag it out, and figure they’re going to get a big settlement offer at some point. Well, the Service never does make that offer,” Sheil told Byline Times. “Probably one of the reasons is this whole thing became a cause célèbre.”
“He brings in a past commissioner of the IRS and a past chief counsel for the IRS, figuring they can negotiate a big settlement,” Sheil notes of Mercer’s tactics, who did not reply to Byline Times requests for comment. In essence, the drag of dormancy has been part of Republican strategy: inaction as a modus operandi.
I have learned a lot from Marty about the slow-walking of justice and how much destruction occurs from inaction. But like Marty, I remain an optimist. He said enforcing the laws we already have on the books could help right these many wrongs and deficiencies.
But that requires our democracy to hold. That requires sunlight on dark money. That requires criminal convictions of American Monsters.
In another epic report I wrote with Dave Troy a few months later, The Network — the American and Russian ‘Moralists’ Behind the January 6 Insurrection we spell out the connections between the American and Russian oligarchs.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Basically, what it looks like is this network of folks connected with the CNP that includes the Mercers, and the Kochs, coordinated a variety of campaigns in coordination with a variety of entities in Russia that are connected to the Kremlin to advance traditional values and disinformation and a variety of other things around the world,” Troy told Byline Times.
“A lot of the people involved with CNP got involved with a group called the World Congress of Families that was put together in the mid-‘90s by an American visiting Russia, who realised that traditional values family values were something that would unite the East and the West, Russia and the United States.” By 2011, the World Congress of Families started scheduling their meetings in Russia.
“You ended up with all these traditional family organisations traveling to Russia on a repeated basis, and connecting with people like Aleksandr Dugin, a mystic philosopher who has been an advisor to Putin who has developed this Eurasianist global framework,” Troy explained.
Dugin’s writings have promoted fascist views and a Euro-Asian empire capable of overthrowing the Western world. The World Congress of Families was the connective tissue between CNP and Russia, and their network of right-wing moralists.
Looking back through my archives as I piece this report together, I am gobsmacked at the volume of work, the awareness that I have not slept in seven years. And each time, I learn something else — sometimes it’s just a small detail, and sometimes it’s a large piece of this fascist puzzle.
This time it’s another curious connection between Mercer and Putin. They both share an obsession with youth — Putin, in his heavily botoxxed visage, and Mercer, in his financing of a urine stashing quack seeking the fountain of youth and a proposed expansion to his residential area that upset neighbors — it included a “guest” cottage equipped with medical facilities including a cryotherapy chamber and hyperbaric suite. Because of course it did.
At 76, Mercer — who was also an early AI researcher — must be realizing his large stash of weapons — which allegedly includes a giant grenade launcher — really won’t keep him warm at night.
At least he has his devoted daughter Rebekah, who was caught trying to get Cambridge Analytica’s Etonian dandy Alexander Nix to better organize the Russian-military hacked emails of Clinton, while also funding the J6 radicalization engine Parler — a pivotal platform used in the attempted overthrow of the US.
Another theme that is emerging as I write the Monster series — we have been too eager to swallow myths — the Cult of the Genius Tech Bro, the myth of Trump, the myth of Giuliani, the myth of Mercer.
Among the Mercer myth busters, are former colleagues, who said he “bought shares in Trump”, and that without his cash, “Trump would not be president”.
Funny that, another thing he has in common with Vladimir Putin.
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