| Notes | The entanglements involving the Mercer family, the Make America Number 1 super PAC and the Trump campaign are confusing. They may also be illegal. In a complaint to the FEC, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that defends campaign ethics, alleged in October that the Trump campaign paid Bannon and Conway illegally by funneling money to them through Make America Number 1. FEC records show that after the pair joined the campaign, the PAC gave money to Conway’s polling company and to Glittering Steel, a film production company Bannon is affiliated with. (He is said to run the elusive company and wrote and produced two of its films, Clinton Cash and Torchbearer.)According to the Campaign Legal Center, there are no records showing that Bannon or Conway received money from the Trump campaign in the first few weeks they were working for it—but $247,000 from the super PAC did go to Conway’s company during that time, and $15,000 went to Glittering Steel about a week before Bannon joined. The Campaign Legal Center also alleges that the Trump campaign’s hiring of Conway and Bannon violated FEC rules because of their affiliations with Make America Number 1. The center further alleges that the super PAC’s and the Trump campaign’s use of data company Cambridge Analytica—in which Mercer has invested—was also a conflict of interest. |