Robert Mercer, huge supporter of Donald Trump, and the man who bankrolls Breitbart, taps out.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire who has come under media scrutiny for his role in helping elect Donald Trump, announced today he would step down from his role as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. The decision, announced in a memo to Renaissance employees, followed a BuzzFeed News exposé revealing the connections of Breitbart — partially owned by Mercer — to white nationalists and neo-Nazis. 

Sources familiar with Renaissance informed BuzzFeed News in recent days of significant anger within the company about the report, which revealed that former Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos had cultivated white nationalists and used them to generate ideas and help edit stories on the site. 

Mercer's statement specifically denounces Yiannopoulos and states that "I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him." He also announced his intention to sell his stake in Breitbart to his daughters. 

Mercer was a major funder of Donald Trump's presidential effort.

That BuzzFeed expose was a huge hit, but there may be other contributing factors as well.

Another old story that gained little traction at the time Nazi-lover, Trump funder, Bannon buddy Robert Mercer owes IRS 7 BILLION DOLLARS. https://t.co/BHedMWfwXP

— Candy A Liberal (@candyasslib) November 2, 2017

Damn! I cannot even imagine HAVING seven billion dollars much less OWING seven billion dollars.

Bob Mercer selling stake in Breitbart won't reduce his legal exposure over owning Cambridge Analytica, likely central to the Mueller probe

— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) November 2, 2017

That's right, there is an ever increasing possibility that Robert Mercer will be called in to testify before the Mueller investigation, assuming that it has not already happened.

So to be clear, with Mercer's daughter taking over there will still be money flowing to Steven Bannon and Breitbart, but this is still a huge hit to the conservative media, and certainly sends a signal to Donald Trump that NOBODY is safe regardless of their wealth and power. 

(H/T to Crooks and Liars.)

Head of the Trump Campaign's data-analytics firm admits he reached out to Wikileaks for Hillary's deleted emails.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Alexander Nix, who heads a controversial data-analytics firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton’s missing 33,000 emails. 

On Wednesday, Assange confirmed that such an exchange took place. 

Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton’s missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. (CNN later reported Cambridge backer Rebekah Mercer was one of the email's recipients.) Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix’s email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn’t want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own. 

The interchange between Nix—whose company made millions from the Trump campaign—and Assange represents the closest known connection between Trump’s campaign and Wikileaks.

Aha!

As we know Cambridge Analytica was funded by the Mercer family, and had deep ties with both Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn.

This was the Trump campaign's go to shop for analyzing voter data and formulating a strategy based on what they learned.

However that is an inconvenient reality and therefore the Trump folks must reject it.

Trump campaign issues statement downplaying Cambridge Analytica‘s role working for campaign, doesn’t address Assange/emails pic.twitter.com/N6L7MVtsse

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 25, 2017

Courtesy of Vanity Fair:

When Trump adviser Jared Kushner bragged to Forbes about his role in steering the Trump campaign to victory, he emphasized the merits of its unique data operation. “We brought in Cambridge Analytica,” he said, referring to the Robert Mercer-backed analytics company. “We basically had to build a $400 million operation with 1,500 people operating in 50 states, in five months.” The relationship was lucrative for the firm, too: Between July 29 and December 12 of last year, the Trump campaign reportedly paid Cambridge Analytica $5.9 million, according to Federal Election Commission data. But on Wednesday, after the Daily Beast reported that its C.E.O., Alexander Nix, had reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with an offer to help release Hillary Clinton’s missing e-mails, Team Trump moved to distance itself from the company. 

In a statement, Michael S. Glassner, the Trump campaign executive director, highlighted the operation's reliance on Republican National Committee data. “Once President Trump secured the nomination in 2016, one of the most important decisions we made was to partner with the Republican National Committee on data analytics,” he said. “Leading into the election, the R.N.C. had invested in the most sophisticated data-targeting program in modern American history, which helped secure our victory in the fall. We were proud to have worked with the R.N.C. and its data experts and relied on them as our main source for data analytics.”

Nothing to see here, just move along. Move along dammit!

Apparently the Trump team still thinks there might be too many bread crumbs leading to the campaign's doorstep, so they also made this extraordinary move:

WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of emails apparently hacked from the Democratic National Committee was legal and specifically protected by federal law, the Trump campaign argued in a court filing Wednesday. 

Lawyers for the Trump presidential campaign came to the controversial transparency website's defense in a bid to defeat a lawsuit three Democratic activists filed in July accusing Trump's presidential campaign of conspiring to publish sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers and information suggesting that a Democratic National Committee employee was gay. 

The Trump campaign's motion to dismiss the case argues that WikiLeaks qualifies as the kind of online service that Congress rendered immune from legal liability through legislation passed more than two decades ago.

Do you know how they say that animals can smell fear?

Yeah, well I think I am getting a whiff of that myself. 

Turns out the Mercer family billionaires are helping to fund Trump's Russia defense.

Robert Mercer

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Billionaire Robert Mercer and his wife Diana donated almost $200,000 to the legal defense fund of the Republican Party on the day that President Donald Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, financial filings show. 

The combined $193,400 donation the Mercers made on May 9 went to the GOP legal fund that Trump has been drawing from to pay the lawyers defending him during the investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. 

The Mercers are just one of several billionaire couples donating heavily to the fund in recent months, according to the filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Interesting, that a man who claims to be worth multiple billions of dollars is always expecting others to pick up the check. 

I don't really think their money will prove sufficient to protect Donald Trump from justice.

Not with Robert Mueller on the case.