On July 10, 2020, Terry Tamminen wrote a letter to the board chair of Waterkeeper Alliance, the clean-water group founded and led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to say that he wanted out.

Tamminen, a veteran, highly-regarded environmentalist and co-founder and longtime board member of the organization, had become concerned about the outfit’s finances—so worried that he was tendering his resignation. At issue was at least $67 million that Kennedy’s group had received and passed along over the previous six years—an eye-popping amount for a non-profit that prior to this influx of money had annual revenues of about $4 million, according to its tax filings. Tamminen noted in his letter that he had repeatedly asked Kennedy and other top WKA officials for an explanation regarding these funds—the source of the money and its ultimate use—and had received no satisfying response. He wrote that either there was “no proper documentation” covering this large flow of funds or such documentation was being “withheld” by Kennedy and the staff.

Tamminen had come across a situation that had raised questions among staff at WKA and people within the group’s orbit about the organization and Kennedy’s handling of tens of millions of dollars. His letter was prompted by a legal complaint that claimed WKA had “funneled millions of dollars to the Bahamas” to assist Louis Bacon, a hedge-fund billionaire, in his purported effort to “destroy and damage” Peter Nygård, a Canadian fashion mogul, who owned an estate next to Bacon’s on the island nation. The complaint, filed in a lawsuit brought by Nygård against Bacon, alleged that WKA had engaged in “illegal and/or improper activities” to benefit Bacon, a major financial backer of WKA. It also claimed Kennedy had “carried out illegal and improper activities to further [Bacon’s] scheme to damage [Nygård’s] business and property at the direction of, under the supervision of, at the request of or on behalf of [Bacon].”

“Where did that money go? The whole thing stunk. It was obvious they were hiding something. They have never provided good answers.”

Tamminen’s letter suggested that he was concerned about possible misconduct at Waterkeeper Alliance, a network of hundreds of organizations across the globe that protect bodies of water, and that he worried that Kennedy was not being straightforward about the matter. The Nygård complaint was ultimately dismissed. But with Kennedy, an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run the massive Department of Health and Human Services, this episode—involving millions of dollars—could shed light on his managerial experience and competence.

A Mother Jones investigation has found that charities associated with Bacon, the co-founder and CEO of Moore Capital Management, did contribute at least $63 million to WKA and that these funds were subsequently sent by WKA to Save the Bays, a small environmental group that Bacon, Kennedy, and others had started in the Bahamas and that filed multiple environmental suits against Nygård.

This money flow occurred at the same time Bacon was involved in a bitter feud with Nygård. The two owned adjacent estates in Lyford Cay, a posh community for the super-rich in the Bahamas, and a property dispute—they shared a driveway—had evolved into wild combat costing each millions of dollars. And Save the Bays and its lawyer had become involved in Bacon’s battle with Nygård.

Some WKA staff and associates considered these large transfers of funds to Save the Bays unusual and wondered how this modest outfit was absorbing and spending tens of millions of dollars. For them, it was a sign of Kennedy’s autocratic management of WKA. “You couldn’t really ask questions about this,” a former staffer says. “There was a cult of Bobby.”

Through 2023, the amount of money routed through Kennedy’s organization to finance what was described in its tax records as a program in the Caribbean totaled $79 million. A WKA trustee replying on behalf of the group to queries from Mother Jones maintains this money financed environmental-related litigation mounted by Save the Bays in the Bahamas. Former WKA staff say this is a tremendously high figure for such cases and assert there was no sufficient public documentation that this funding was appropriately handled. “Where did that money go?” asks Bob Shavelson, a former founding WKA board member. “The whole thing stunk. It was obvious they were hiding something. They have never provided good answers.”

Tamminen’s queries about WKA’s finances in 2020 were triggered by a news report about the years-long feud between Bacon and Nygård. Their titanic battle had come to involve multiple lawsuits in varying jurisdictions, private investigators, gang members, phony websites, an allegation of a murder plot targeting Bacon, charges of harassment, political intrigue, secret recordings, and accusations of sexual assault against Nygård.

Eventually, Nygård ended up being convicted in Canada last year of sexual assault and sentenced to 11 years in prison, while still facing trials for sex crimes and other charges in Montreal, Winnipeg, and New York. And Bacon won a defamation case against Nygård and a $203 million judgment, but in November that award was tossed out.

Tamminen had spotted a story about the complaint Nygård had filed on April 30, 2020, in a New York federal court alleging that Bacon and others had engaged in a pattern of illegal conduct for years to defame him and destroy his fashion brand. Nygård listed a host of people and organizations supposedly involved or knowledgable of this alleged scheme, including Waterkeeper Alliance, Kennedy, and Fred Smith, a Bahamian lawyer and co-founder and board member of Save the Bays, the group that Kennedy and Bacon had helped to start. (Smith was also a member of Waterkeeper Alliance.) Launched in 2013, Save the Bays had sued Nygård for dredging and other activity that, the group contended, had despoiled Clifton Bay, which Nygård’s gaudy and palatial estate overlooked.

There is “no way you can spend $79 million on this type of litigation. You can buy a whole ecosystem for that amount of money… Without details, there’s no way you can explain these numbers.”

Nygård’s complaint stated that Save the Bays had relied “heavily on funding and support from Waterkeeper Alliance.” The filing also cited a 2010 Denver Post story in which Kennedy had praised Bacon, noting he was the “single largest supporter” of the Waterkeeper Alliance. A lawyer who has worked with WKA describes Bacon as “one of Bobby’s rich-guy friends.”

After reading about this complaint, Tamminen wondered about WKA and Kennedy’s connection to the Nygård-Bacon face-off. According to his resignation letter, on July 2, 2020, Tamminen emailed Mary Beth Postman, the deputy director of WKA, and asked, “Did we run any litigation funding for this case through WKA? Some rumors flying around, but I don’t recall anything like that on our 990s.” He was referring to the annual tax return that nonprofits must file. WKA’s public 990s indicated that tens of millions of dollars had been sent to the Caribbean without detailing what they financed. A onetime WKA associate says, “This looked totally smelly.”

According to Tamminen’s resignation letter, he soon spoke with Kennedy and asked for records related to this funding, and Kennedy, was “unable to provide the documents (or a verbal explanation).”

Afterward Postman informed Tamminen that the WKA had a “fiscal sponsorship agreement” to support work in the Bahamas. This meant WKA was receiving, as a pass-through, money for the Bahamian group. Acting as a pass-through is a common practice for nonprofits, but they can only do this to support charitable activity, usually a project in sync with their own missions. They can charge a percentage of the funds for this service, often in the 7-to-14-percent range, and, according to the WKA trustee who replied to queries from Mother Jones, the organization did receive a cut. The trustee would not say how much.

Tamminen pressed Marc Yaggi, the CEO of WKA, for documentation and details on the source of the millions sent to the Bahamas, the recipients of those funds, and how this money was spent. “We can’t be funneling millions of dollars (3X our own budget as shown on 990s) to [nongovernmental organizations] without full transparency about how the money is being spent and an unambiguous contract with those recipients about what is allowable and, specifically, what is not,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Finally, according to the letter, Tamminen was sent a spreadsheet from WKA trustee William Wachtel indicating that the majority of the more than $67 million in question went to the Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay, an earlier name for Save the Bays, and “an invoice for reimbursement by WKA from lawyers involved in the [Nygård-Bacon] litigation…in the amount of $1,752,193” for a three-month period in 2020.

Tamminen deemed this reply insufficient. At this point, he threw up his hands and decided to quit, noting in his letter, “I have a fiduciary responsibility to understand the organization’s finances” and stating that because Kennedy and his staff had not provided adequate documentation he could not perform this basic task.

Tamminen declined to comment.

In response to a long list of questions sent to Kennedy by Mother Jones about WKA forwarding money to the Bahamas, RFK Jr. texted, “The coverage on me from mother John’s [sic] has been consistently hostile and inaccurate. MJ was once a counter culture journal that spoke truth to power It now seems to be yet another propaganda bullhorn for the DS Regime.” (Might “DS Regime” refer to a Deep State Regime?) Asked if this text was his full response to the list of queries, Kennedy did not reply.

Tamminen’s letters, Shavelson says, was a “damning piece of evidence.” His resignation drew attention within WKA and its large network of local Waterkeeper groups to a curious question: Why had Kennedy’s organization passed along so much money to the Bahamas? “We didn’t really know who was giving us this money,” a former staffer says.

The WKA’s 990s show that through 2023, the total amount that passed through what the group called its Central America/Caribbean program was $79 million. On the 990s available to the public, the name of the recipient of those funds were redacted. (This is unusual; grantees tend to be identified.) A former WKA staffer says that the recipient listed on the 990s was the law firm of Fred Smith, the Bahamian lawyer who, with Kennedy and Bacon, helped organize Save the Bays and who was associated with Bacon’s wide-ranging fight against Nygård. That battle included a lawsuit charging Nygård with sex crimes.

WKA staff and associates of the Waterkeeper Alliance were suspicious of this funding arrangement. The amount of money going to Save the Bays was “off-kilter,” a former WKA staffer says. “It was disproportionate to the size of the program. They had an office that was maybe 400-square-feet with one full-time staffer and some part-timers. We did not know the source of the money going down there.”

Save the Bays has run a radio show and a youth education program. Its website is no longer operational, and the phone number listed on its Facebook page is out of service. “I’ve never heard of that amount of money being spent on that type of litigation,” Shavelson says.

“This money was orders of magnitude greater than anything in my experience in my 30 years of practice as an environmental lawyer,” says Daniel Cooper, the founding partner of Sycamore Law, a firm that specializes in filing environmental enforcement cases for grassroots nonprofits. (He was not involved in the Save the Bays litigation.)

The former WKA staffer adds that “there was a very closed loop on that money, with Bobby involved.” Some staffers at the time questioned whether some of the funds going to the Bahamas were being used for the ongoing conflict between Bacon and Nygård beyond the environmental lawsuits Save the Bays had filed regarding Nygård.

A key issue was the source of the funding. A review conducted by Mother Jones of charitable organizations associated with Bacon—Moore Charitable Foundation, Belvedere Charitable Foundation, and Bessemer Trust—shows that these entities donated a hefty amount, nearly $63 million, to the Waterkeeper Alliance from 2014 through 2023. (Unlike the Moore and Belvedere foundations, the Bessemer Trust, a multifamily office that oversees more than $200 billion for endowments, families, and foundations, is not controlled by Bacon. But Bacon’s contributions to its Bessemer Giving Fund closely matched the contributions it sent to WKA.)

The WKA trustee confirms that the Bacon donations to WKA were the source of the funds that Kennedy’s outfit passed to Save the Bays. If so, that means Bacon was sending money to WKA—a group for whom he was a major supporter—that Kennedy’s organization, after taking a cut, was forwarding to a group that Bacon, Kennedy, Smith and others had formed, which subsequently filed lawsuits against Bacon’s archnemesis.

For years prior to Tamminen enquiring about WKA’s activity in the Bahamas, Save the Bays had been a controversial organization on the island nation and had prompted questions about its funding and relationship to Bacon. During a 2016 television interview, Fred Smith refused to acknowledge that Bacon was a major financial supporter of Save the Bays. “It is often used as some measure of criticism against us,” he said. When the host suggested that Bacon had used Save the Bays “to get at Peter Nygård…to discredit Peter Nygård,” Smith replied, “Louis Bacon doesn’t need Save the Bays to do what you are suggesting.” In this interview, Smith said, “I have never been paid by Save the Bays… I’m a director of Save the Bays.” (About that time, Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald claimed Save the Bays, through its environmental lawsuits, was trying to destabilize and “overthrow” the Progressive Liberal Party government—a charge Smith denied in this interview. Nygård, a PLP supporter, once bragged he had donated $5 million to party.)

After Tamminen’s resignation caused a fuss for WKA, the law firm run by WKA trustee William Wachtel conducted a review of the money sent to the Bahamas and produced a private report. Wachtel was part of this review, according to the trustee who spoke to Mother Jones. In a one-page statement, the WKA board of directors called this inquiry an “independent assessment.” It said that the review found “no red flags” and concluded there was “no clear evidence of misuse of funds” and “no clear evidence of donors improperly gaining benefits from donations”—presumably a reference to Bacon. The statement did not mention Bacon, Save the Bays, or the Bahamas.

Former WKA associates point out that this was not an independent investigation, given that it was conducted by a trustee. “This was a bogus audit,” Shavelson says. A onetime WKA associate says, “To have a trustee conduct an investigation that then says ‘nothing to see here’ doesn’t pass the smell test.”

The inquiry’s final report was shared with an audit committee of the WKA board, not the full board.

The WKA trustee says this inquiry showed that the $79 million was mostly spent on litigation conducted by Smith and his law firm for Save the Bays and that the inquiry reviewed billing documents and invoices from Smith and determined they were accurate and covered legitimate expenses. “We saw nothing spent for anything other than the litigation that went on,” the trustee says. A former board member, who has not seen the review, says that they learned the litigation billing included expenses for lavish hotel suites, limousines, and security services.

Save the Bays and Smith did indeed engage in environmental-related litigation. In 2015, the group launched a legal action regarding pollution attributed to a power plant. It successfully sued Nygård for illegally dredging Clifton Bay to expand his property, and that case led to the Supreme Court of the Bahamas seizing his property in 2018. It also filed a legal action claiming Nygård had engaged in unauthorized construction. In 2021, Save the Bays and Waterkeeper Bahamas filed a case to compel judicial review of foreign oil development in the Bahamas.

But former WKA associates say the nearly $79 million price tag for Save the Bays litigation seems exceedingly high. “The cost of an illegal dredging case is in the tens of thousands of dollars,” a former WKA staffer says. Shavelson asks, “Where’s all this litigation? There would have to be a mountain of stuff for those billables. I’ve never heard of that amount of money being spent on that type of litigation.” Another former WKA associate says that the typical cases that Waterkeeper Alliance members bring range for $10,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars and that there is “no way you can spend $79 million on this type of litigation. You can buy a whole ecosystem for that amount of money.” This source adds, “Without details, there’s no way you can explain these numbers.”

While Smith was filing environmental cases for Save the Bays, he was a key ally of Bacon in the billionaire’s fierce fight with Nygård. According to a lengthy New York Times account of the Bacon-Nygård clash, Smith worked with private investigators and found 15 Bahamian women to participate in a sex crimes lawsuit against Nygård. He also encouraged women who claimed to be Nygård victims to go to the Bahamian police. The newspaper noted that Smith created a nonprofit called Sanctuary, which he and Bacon funded, and that it paid Bahamian lawyers and investigators involved in putting together the sex crimes lawsuit against Nygård. Smith and the private investigators, according to the newspaper, compensated at least two witnesses who located alleged victims.

Nygård reportedly spent $15 million on a smear campaign against Bacon, which included television and radio ads, doctored videos, and outlandish accusations, and Bacon said in court that he expended $53 million for investigators and lawyers in his legal fight with Nygård.

Mother Jones sent lengthy lists of questions to Marc Yaggi and Mary Beth Postman of WKA, Fred Smith, Save the Bays, Louis Bacon (through his Moore Charitable Foundation), and the Trump transition team. It asked WKA if it would release unredacted versions of its 990s. It asked if WKA could provide an accounting of the litigation the tens of millions of dollars supposedly financed. It asked whether Tamminen’s account—including his claim that Kennedy would not provide him information to confirm the money sent to the Bahamas was handled appropriately—was accurate. None of them, except Katie Miller, a Trump transition staffer, replied. Miller emailed, “As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to left wind [sic] activists masquerading as journalists.” The Bessemer Trust did not respond to a request to comment.

Several months after Tamminen prompted a stir about the Bahamas money, Kennedy resigned as WKA president. The WKA trustee says the Bahamas project was not a factor in Kennedy’s resignation. By that point, Kennedy had become a leading promoter of Covid disinformation, and this had caused concern within WKA and among the group’s funders and supporters.

When WKA in November 2020 announced Kennedy’s resignation as president, he said, “Waterkeeper is my life’s work and will always be my proudest achievement…. I’m immensely proud of what we created.” He added, “My dreams overflow with the thousands of miles of magnificent waterways that I’ve been privileged to paddle or travel with many of you over 40 years; the mangroves, the muskies, the Spanish moss, the schooling salmon, the shrimp, crayfish, blue crab, and yellow perch, the calving glaciers and all that flowing water from the Himalayas to the Tetons, from the Andes to the Arctic, from Bimini to Homer, from Bhutan to the Jordan, and from Lake Ontario to the Futaleufú.” He did not mention the Bahamas. Upon his departure, the board named him president emeritus.

Former New York City mayor and Trump hanger-on Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court on Friday—for the second time in a week. Giuliani faces two different federal lawsuits against him stemming from his comments about a pair of Georgia elections workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of helping rig the 2020 election. He has now been found in contempt of court in both cases and faces additional fines—on top of the $148 million he already owes the two women.

Shortly after the 2020 election, Giuliani falsely said that video footage of the Atlanta vote-counting site where Freeman and Moss—a mother and daughter employed as temporary election officials—were working showed the two women manipulating votes. The lies were later repeated by Donald Trump and spread around the Internet, leading to harassment and death threats against the pair. Freeman and Moss sued Giulani for defamation, and in 2023 a jury voted that he owed them $148 million in damages. Creditors later filed a second lawsuit against Giuliani for failing to cooperate in turning over the assets he owes.

On Monday, Giuliani was found in contempt of court in that second case, based in New York City, where the judge found that while Giuliani had turned over some assets, he had not been forthcoming with important paperwork needed to evaluate what other assets he must relinquish. The judge in that case ruled that Giuliani had “willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “blew past” a December 20 deadline to provide certain paperwork.

On Friday, Beryl A. Howell, the Washington, D.C., judge in the original defamation case, found Giuliani in contempt because he has continued to defame Freeman and Moss, repeating lies about them even after he lost the original case. In May, Giuliani signed an agreement in which he said he agreed to stop repeating the falsehoods—a promise which he then broke in November with comments he made on his podcast.

In her contempt ruling, Howell gave Giuliani 10 days to file a sworn declaration that he had reviewed all of the testimony and witness statements from the trial, with the idea that it will put him on the record as conclusively acknowledging that his statements about the women are false. Giuliani will be fined $200 a day for every day he does not meet the deadline, and faces potential jail time if he continues to refuse to cooperate.

After court, Giuliani called Howell “bloodthirsty” for her ruling. In addition to the massive judgment against him and multiple lawsuits, Giuliani, 80, has been permanently disbarred in multiple jurisdictions.

Former New York City mayor and Trump hanger-on Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court on Friday—for the second time in a week. Giuliani faces two different federal lawsuits against him stemming from his comments about a pair of Georgia elections workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of helping rig the 2020 election. He has now been found in contempt of court in both cases and faces additional fines—on top of the $148 million he already owes the two women.

Shortly after the 2020 election, Giuliani falsely said that video footage of the Atlanta vote-counting site where Freeman and Moss—a mother and daughter employed as temporary election officials—were working showed the two women manipulating votes. The lies were later repeated by Donald Trump and spread around the Internet, leading to harassment and death threats against the pair. Freeman and Moss sued Giulani for defamation, and in 2023 a jury voted that he owed them $148 million in damages. Creditors later filed a second lawsuit against Giuliani for failing to cooperate in turning over the assets he owes.

On Monday, Giuliani was found in contempt of court in that second case, based in New York City, where the judge found that while Giuliani had turned over some assets, he had not been forthcoming with important paperwork needed to evaluate what other assets he must relinquish. The judge in that case ruled that Giuliani had “willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “blew past” a December 20 deadline to provide certain paperwork.

On Friday, Beryl A. Howell, the Washington, D.C., judge in the original defamation case, found Giuliani in contempt because he has continued to defame Freeman and Moss, repeating lies about them even after he lost the original case. In May, Giuliani signed an agreement in which he said he agreed to stop repeating the falsehoods—a promise which he then broke in November with comments he made on his podcast.

In her contempt ruling, Howell gave Giuliani 10 days to file a sworn declaration that he had reviewed all of the testimony and witness statements from the trial, with the idea that it will put him on the record as conclusively acknowledging that his statements about the women are false. Giuliani will be fined $200 a day for every day he does not meet the deadline, and faces potential jail time if he continues to refuse to cooperate.

After court, Giuliani called Howell “bloodthirsty” for her ruling. In addition to the massive judgment against him and multiple lawsuits, Giuliani, 80, has been permanently disbarred in multiple jurisdictions.

Donald Trump’s criminal case ended with a sputter on Friday morning as a New York City judge sentenced him to no jail time and discharged his case. While the incoming president received no actual punishment for his 34 convictions for concealing hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the sentencing did formalize his status as a felon—a first for any American president. Trump did not have to be present in court for the sentencing, but appeared by video from Mar-a-Lago, sitting next to his attorney.

“This defendant… has placed officers of the court in harm’s way.”

During the brief hearing, prosecutors said they agreed with the plan to not give Trump any jail time, but insisted he must be categorized as a felon. Joshua Steinglass of the Manhattan district attorney’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that a probation report produced for the sentencing described Trump as seeing himself above the law and refusing to take responsibility for his actions.

Steinglass argued that Trump, who appeared to either sleep or pretended to sleep for much of the trial, and who used his social media to direct vitriol at prosecutors, witnesses, and Merchan and his family, should not be allowed to walk away from his convictions without any formal recognition of his wrongdoing,

“This defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” Steinglass said.

“This has been a very terrible experience,” Trump complained in rambling remarks to Merchan, adding that he thought “it’s been a tremendous setback,” for the state of New York. At one point he complained about his former fixer, Michael Cohen, who testified against him in the case, saying that Cohen talks like George Washington, “But he’s not George Washington.“

Aside from other brief comments once again denying he had done anything and pointing to electoral results in swing states as a way of claiming vindication in the case, Trump reportedly spent most of Friday’s hearing looking either distracted by something in front of him—possibly a phone—or grimacing and shaking his head at negative descriptions of his behavior.

Trump and his legal team attempted to have the case and sentencing delayed or thrown out, taking appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, citing the high court’s July decision extending presiidents unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecution. On Thursday, the Supreme Court, denied his efforts clearing the way f0r Friday’s sentencing.

Speaking from the bench, Merchan reminded Trump that the presidential immunity that he tried—and failed—to invoke to avoid the convictions, applied to the office of the presidency, not the individual who has occupied it. As Merchan put it, it did not protect “Donald Trump the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump the criminal defendant.”

The sentence of an unconditional discharge means that the case is over, Trump is not punished, and unlike a conditional discharge, does not have to meet any conditions—like keeping a job, passing drug tests or making restitution—to avoid further consequences.

During the trial, Trump was fined $9,000 for contempt.

In an interview this week, Eric Trump promised that his father will build a “very large wall” between the incoming first family’s private business interests and any government business. Then, apparently without a hint of irony or shame, he took the stage at a crypto conference—which he attended as a representative of the crypto company his father has deep financial ties to—and spoke passionately about how President Trump would bolster the crypto industry as a whole.

The younger Trump sat for the interview with Reuters while in Abu Dhabi for the pro-crypto conference and said a number of potentially reassuring things about how his family intends to avoid conflicts of interest between the Trump Organization and the Trump presidential administration. But he stopped short of offering ironclad safeguards.

“There’s going to be, obviously, a very large wall between anything having to do with our company and anything to do with government,” Eric Trump told Reuters, promising to take the obligation seriously and pointing to his father’s first term as an example. While many government ethics expert agree that President Trump did not do enough to prevent conflicts the first time around—he refused to divest ownership of the Trump Organization, for example—Trump did refrain from making new deals with foreign investors between 2017 and 2021. Of course, Trump continued to do business with his pre-existing foreign partners, giving them preferred access at his 2017 inauguration and refusing to disclose exactly how much money foreign governments paid to rent hotel rooms at his various properties.

But this week—during the very same interview in which he pledged to take ethics issues seriously—Eric Trump described a far narrower promise: no new Trump Organization deals directly with foreign governments. That notably wouldn’t cover new deals resembling business partnerships the Trumps currently have in countries like India, Indonesia, Turkey, Oman, and, most recently, Saudi Arabia. It’s also not clear whether the promise not to deal directly with foreign governments includes Trump’s ongoing partnerships with LIV Golf, the golf league owned by the Private Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund which, at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, invests profits from Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team, did not directly respond to a question about foreign deals, but said Donald Trump had already taken steps to remove himself from any conflicts and would be sacrificing even more wealth by serving as president.

“President Trump removed himself from his multi-billion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his government salary, becoming the first President to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House,” Leavitt responded. “Unlike most politicians, President Trump didn’t get into politics for profit – he’s fighting because he loves the people of this country and wants to make America great again.”

The final plan for how Donald Trump and his progeny will handle these potential conflicts hasn’t been released—a formal arrangement is currently being negotiated between Trump’s attorneys and the Office of Government Ethics. But despite, Eric Trump’s pledge to take the ethics issue seriously, he almost immediately appeared to undermine his own words.

Taking the stage at the same conference, Eric Trump told the crowd that his own family saw value in crypto as a way to circumvent the gatekeepers in the traditional investment world. He touted World Liberty Financial, the crypto company Trump founded earlier this year.

Then, Eric Trump riled up the crowd by asking if they liked current Gary Gensler, the current Securities and Exchange commissioner who is widely viewed as an enemy in the crypto world.

“Gary Gensler waged war against the industry that we all love and everybody knows it,” Eric Trump told attendees. Then he lauded Paul Atkins, a pro-crypto lawyer who Donald Trump has picked to replace Gensler.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Millions of dollars in last-minute money is pouring into the battle over a pair of abortion-related ballot measures in Nebraska, and it is coming through an unusual and circuitous route.

Much of that cash is being spent by a new group called Common Sense Nebraska, which has shelled out a remarkable $4.9 million in the three weeks since it was formed—largely on ads opposing an initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and supporting a separate initiative that would ban abortion.

As of the most recent campaign finance filings, the organization still had another $500,000 in the bank.

Nebraska is one of 10 states with abortion-related measures on the ballot. Last week, the National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones reported that Catholic organizations around the country had contributed more than $1.9 million to the fight, with millions more flowing in from wealthy individuals with close ties to the church.

But what’s especially notable about the Common Sense Nebraska spending is the labyrinthine path that the money has taken. Most of the funds appear to have originated with the conservative, billionaire Ricketts family and with the conservative group CatholicVote, both of which have made the bulk of their donations since mid-October, according to state campaign finance records.

Common Sense Nebraska then routed the Ricketts and CatholicVote money to the campaigns of three local political candidates, including two incumbents running for reelection to the University of Nebraska’s board of regents. 

These local candidates, in turn, purchased massive amounts of television air time, which they then donated to the anti-abortion-rights PAC Protect Women & Children for ads about the ballot initiatives.

Elements of this arrangement were first reported last week by local news outlets, including the Lincoln Journal Star. Gavin Geis, the executive director of Common Cause Nebraska—a watchdog group unrelated to Common Sense Nebraska—told the Journal Star that shuffling money this way is not illegal but obscures the true source of donations and provides significant benefits for the political committees involved.

“By contributing airtime to ballot initiatives, candidates can shield donors from disclosing their support for the proposal and give them a financial advantage over their opponents due to federal rules that give candidates discounted airtime,” Geis said.

None of the candidates participating in this funding arrangement—University of Nebraska Regents Jim Scheer and Robert Schafer, and state legislative candidate Tanya Storer—responded to requests for comment for this story.

The sudden spending by Common Sense Nebraska has greatly increased the amount of money available to abortion rights opponents in the state. Through early October, Protect Women & Children, the PAC leading the anti-abortion ballot push, had raised and spent just over $4 million on the two initiatives. Almost all that money came from the Ricketts and another wealthy family, the Peeds; both families are well-known donors to Nebraska’s Catholic dioceses. But since Common Sense Nebraska was established on Oct. 14, it has raised an additional $5.4 million, almost all of which ended up going to Protect Women & Children in one form or another.

Of that $5.4 million, Common Sense Nebraska has donated $3.2 million to Scheer. Scheer, in turn, purchased $3.2 million worth of commercial airtime, which he then donated to Protect Women & Children for anti-abortion ads.

Another $687,000 of Common Sense Nebraska funds went to Schafer, who donated $667,000 worth of advertising time to Protect Women & Children. And Common Sense Nebraska contributed $283,000 to Storer’s campaign, which has made $231,000 worth of in-kind advertising donations to the Protect Women & Children.

Common Sense Nebraska has also donated $781,000 directly to Protect Women & Children, including donations as recently as Nov. 1. More donations may have occurred that have yet to be filed with the state campaign finance system. 

The majority of the money moving through Common Sense Nebraska’s coffers—$3.9 million—was donated by Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts. Another $830,000 was donated by the group CatholicVote on Oct. 21 and 23.

The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat center. The Ricketts family is also well known for their ownership of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and their involvement in Nebraska state politics. Joe Ricketts’ eldest son, Pete Ricketts, a Republican, previously served as the governor and is currently Nebraska’s junior senator.  

Under the leadership of its president, Brian Burch, CatholicVote has become a major player in conservative Catholic political circles. Like much of the MAGA-aligned right, the Wisconsin-based organization was initially reluctant to embrace Donald Trump. In 2016, it refused to endorse him, saying he was “problematic in too many ways.”

More recently, CatholicVote has touted Trump’s praise for the organization. In 2020, the group drew national media attention for using geofencing to capture Catholics’ cell phone data while they were attending Mass. The $10 million project then sent targeted political ads to Catholics in battleground states. In this cycle’s Republican primary, CatholicVote hosted a rally for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis but eventually endorsed Trump.

Initially a project of the Catholic branch of the Christian Coalition, CatholicVote later became part of the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy, founded by Burch in 2005. Fidelis’ most recent tax documents, from 2022, indicate revenue of $9.4 million—up from $4.8 million the previous year.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, every state-level campaign to limit abortion has failed. But that hasn’t stopped Catholic organizations from stepping into the fight again this election year.

Catholic organizations are bankrolling campaigns against abortion-rights measures, spending more than $1.9 million so far in five of the 10 states where such measures are on the ballot, according to a joint investigation by National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones.

In Florida alone, dioceses and bishops have spent more than $1.1 million, and church entities in South Dakota have recently ramped up spending as the election nears. In other states, the church’s hierarchy may be sitting out financially, but wealthy individuals with well-established associations with the Catholic Church, or church-affiliated groups—like local parishes and Knights of Columbus chapters—have stepped into the fray. 

The fight in Florida over Amendment 4—a ballot initiative to add the right to an abortion in the state constitution—has become a political lightning rod, so it may not be surprising that the high-profile battle has attracted heavyweight donors from across the country. Florida requires 60 percent voter approval to amend the state constitution.

Abortion-rights groups have raised at least $60.7 million, swamping the $9 million raised by anti-abortion groups—both sides flooding the airwaves with ads. The majority of the money pouring in on the abortion-rights side is from major national groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. Catholics for Choice has contributed just $10,378 to the fight in Florida. (Searches in other states turned up no other donations from Catholics for Choice.)

With the appearance of a showdown between the powers on each side of the national debate, it may be fitting that the Miami Archdiocese has given the most money of any church organization in the country this year—three donations totaling $384,000 to a political action committee called Florida Voters Against Extremism.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has donated another $271,000, and the Catholic dioceses of Venice, Palm Beach, and St. Petersburg gave $100,000 each. Dioceses in Orlando, St. Augustine, and Pensacola also donated.

Various Florida Catholic dioceses and the state’s bishops’ conference have stepped in, financially, during previous ballot initiative fights, but never on this scale— prior to 2024, they had given just $198,000.

The church in Florida has made these donations, a representative from the bishops’ conference said, because “it would be unconscionable not to defend against this threat to the sanctity of unborn life and the dignity of pregnant women.”

The money comes from diocesan and individual contributions to the conference’s general operating funds, said Michele Taylor, associate director for communications. “Dioceses and the conference observe Florida election and campaign finance laws and so there have been no special collections for the defeat of Amendment 4,” she said.

Diocesan donations in other states were substantially smaller, but so is the overall size of the ballot initiative fights. In South Dakota, for instance, the Sioux Falls Diocese has donated $340,000 to two separate anti-abortion PACs fighting to block a ballot initiative to create a similar protection for abortion rights in the state constitution. 

The one abortion-rights group raising money to support the ballot initiative’s passage had only raised $298,000 in September and October. The Sioux Falls Diocese’s donation included an in-kind donation of $40,000 for polling work. All of the diocese’s donations have been made since September 25.

Similarly, in Colorado, despite a heavily funded abortion-rights PAC filling the airwaves with ads in support of Amendment 79, another effort to install a right to abortion in the state constitution, the Catholic Church had seemed to be uninterested—at least in terms of financial donations—in the fight until very recently. 

But on September 11, the Denver Archdiocese sent a $50,000 check to the Pro-Life Colorado Fund, and it sent a second much larger check for $175,000 to the same group on October 22.

In Missouri, by contrast, the St. Louis Archdiocese, four other dioceses around the state, and the state bishops’ conference all donated $5,000, but earlier in the year and only to the effort to block an abortion ballot initiative from ever getting on the ballot. Since the initiative was approved for the ballot, the dioceses haven’t donated again.

Some Missouri pro-life groups had hoped the fight against the constitutional amendment for abortion rights would attract more national money, said Jamie Morris, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy agency in the state. He believes the focus on the presidential race, and ones in the Senate or House, put the financial focus elsewhere.

Losses in previous amendment battles, as in Ohio and Kansas, also may have dissuaded funders, Morris said. “I do think ours is tighter than Ohio’s ended up,” he said. “It would seem ripe for someone to come in and at least get some messaging and funding out there to push it over the top.”

Polling shows more than half of Missourians favoring the amendment, with 34 percent opposed. The Ohio abortion-rights measure was approved 57 percent to 43 percent in 2023.

In some states, spending from groups or individuals closely associated with the church has dramatically augmented or, arguably, eliminated the need for church spending.

In South Dakota, for example, where diocesan spending has been heavy, the national Knights of Columbus organization, based in New Haven, Connecticut, contributed $200,000 to a group opposing that state’s constitutional amendment on abortion. In Missouri, where the dioceses have spent only $25,000, the state Knights of Columbus chapter has chipped in $75,000.

In Nebraska, two ballot initiatives—one seeking to block abortion rights, the other to add it as a constitutional right—have attracted millions in spending, but none from that state’s dioceses. But two families of prominent Nebraska Catholics have contributed more than $6.6 million of the total $7 million donated to anti-abortion committees in the ballot initiative fight. 

Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and her son, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R), Nebraska’s junior senator, have contributed $5.1 million. The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including spending an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat. 

Two members of another family, the Peeds, who have recently become prominent donors in conservative political and Catholic circles, chipped in another $2 million. Family matriarch Rhonda Peed has said faith drives the family’s charitable giving, including some $1.8 million to the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the past two decades.

In Missouri, prominent conservative and anti-abortion attorney John Sauer has contributed roughly $757,000 to the fight over abortion. Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri, has represented anti-abortion groups in the past and successfully defended a Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse.

In January, Sauer represented former President Donald Trump in his successful claim before the US Supreme Court claiming broad presidential immunity. Missouri state campaign finance records show that this year Sauer gave $500,000 to Missouri Right to Life, which was spent to oppose an abortion-rights ballot initiative, and $257,000 to a political committee set up specifically to oppose the initiative as well.

Representatives from the Sioux Falls Diocese and the Denver Archdiocese did not respond to interview requests.

In all 10 states with abortion ballot measures, Catholic groups and dioceses are working to oppose abortion-rights amendments with mailings, bishops’ statements, videos, prayers and other resources in English and Spanish. Says Morris of Missouri: “It’s kind of an all-of-the-above approach.”

Yet, the effectiveness of church attempts at persuasion are questionable. A recent poll of Catholic voters in seven battleground states found that the hierarchy’s influence on voters in their flock is extremely limited. Only 32 percent said bishops were very or somewhat influential in voting decisions, and 37 percent said priests were, according to the poll, which was conducted by the National Catholic Reporter.

Political strategies, like funding statewide anti-abortion initiatives, is only a part of conservative Catholics’ “long game,” according to Mary Jo McConahay, author of Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right. 

Legal activist Leonard Leo, for example, has turned his attention from the US Supreme Court to a web of Catholic organizations aimed at instilling traditionalist values in the broader culture.

“I think ultraconservative Catholic intellectuals are leaning now in the direction of changing culture itself to achieve their various goals, including demonizing—or criminalizing—abortion, homosexuality, transgender people, etc., which also would move the country closer toward Christian nationalism,” McConahay said. “As long as the majority of the voting population is pro-abortion, Catholic money may start to go to this kind of longer-term effort, rather than fighting ballot measures.”

This story has been updated to reflect additional donations.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, every state-level campaign to limit abortion has failed. But that hasn’t stopped Catholic organizations from stepping into the fight again this election year.

Catholic organizations are bankrolling campaigns against abortion-rights measures, spending more than $1.9 million so far in five of the 10 states where such measures are on the ballot, according to a joint investigation by National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones.

In Florida alone, dioceses and bishops have spent more than $1.1 million, and church entities in South Dakota have recently ramped up spending as the election nears. In other states, the church’s hierarchy may be sitting out financially, but wealthy individuals with well-established associations with the Catholic Church, or church-affiliated groups—like local parishes and Knights of Columbus chapters—have stepped into the fray. 

The fight in Florida over Amendment 4—a ballot initiative to add the right to an abortion in the state constitution—has become a political lightning rod, so it may not be surprising that the high-profile battle has attracted heavyweight donors from across the country. Florida requires 60 percent voter approval to amend the state constitution.

Abortion-rights groups have raised at least $60.7 million, swamping the $9 million raised by anti-abortion groups—both sides flooding the airwaves with ads. The majority of the money pouring in on the abortion-rights side is from major national groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. Catholics for Choice has contributed just $10,378 to the fight in Florida. (Searches in other states turned up no other donations from Catholics for Choice.)

With the appearance of a showdown between the powers on each side of the national debate, it may be fitting that the Miami Archdiocese has given the most money of any church organization in the country this year—three donations totaling $384,000 to a political action committee called Florida Voters Against Extremism.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has donated another $271,000, and the Catholic dioceses of Venice, Palm Beach, and St. Petersburg gave $100,000 each. Dioceses in Orlando, St. Augustine, and Pensacola also donated.

Various Florida Catholic dioceses and the state’s bishops’ conference have stepped in, financially, during previous ballot initiative fights, but never on this scale— prior to 2024, they had given just $198,000.

The church in Florida has made these donations, a representative from the bishops’ conference said, because “it would be unconscionable not to defend against this threat to the sanctity of unborn life and the dignity of pregnant women.”

The money comes from diocesan and individual contributions to the conference’s general operating funds, said Michele Taylor, associate director for communications. “Dioceses and the conference observe Florida election and campaign finance laws and so there have been no special collections for the defeat of Amendment 4,” she said.

Diocesan donations in other states were substantially smaller, but so is the overall size of the ballot initiative fights. In South Dakota, for instance, the Sioux Falls Diocese has donated $340,000 to two separate anti-abortion PACs fighting to block a ballot initiative to create a similar protection for abortion rights in the state constitution. 

The one abortion-rights group raising money to support the ballot initiative’s passage had only raised $298,000 in September and October. The Sioux Falls Diocese’s donation included an in-kind donation of $40,000 for polling work. All of the diocese’s donations have been made since September 25.

Similarly, in Colorado, despite a heavily funded abortion-rights PAC filling the airwaves with ads in support of Amendment 79, another effort to install a right to abortion in the state constitution, the Catholic Church had seemed to be uninterested—at least in terms of financial donations—in the fight until very recently. 

But on September 11, the Denver Archdiocese sent a $50,000 check to the Pro-Life Colorado Fund, and it sent a second much larger check for $175,000 to the same group on October 22.

In Missouri, by contrast, the St. Louis Archdiocese, four other dioceses around the state, and the state bishops’ conference all donated $5,000, but earlier in the year and only to the effort to block an abortion ballot initiative from ever getting on the ballot. Since the initiative was approved for the ballot, the dioceses haven’t donated again.

Some Missouri pro-life groups had hoped the fight against the constitutional amendment for abortion rights would attract more national money, said Jamie Morris, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy agency in the state. He believes the focus on the presidential race, and ones in the Senate or House, put the financial focus elsewhere.

Losses in previous amendment battles, as in Ohio and Kansas, also may have dissuaded funders, Morris said. “I do think ours is tighter than Ohio’s ended up,” he said. “It would seem ripe for someone to come in and at least get some messaging and funding out there to push it over the top.”

Polling shows more than half of Missourians favoring the amendment, with 34 percent opposed. The Ohio abortion-rights measure was approved 57 percent to 43 percent in 2023.

In some states, spending from groups or individuals closely associated with the church has dramatically augmented or, arguably, eliminated the need for church spending.

In South Dakota, for example, where diocesan spending has been heavy, the national Knights of Columbus organization, based in New Haven, Connecticut, contributed $200,000 to a group opposing that state’s constitutional amendment on abortion. In Missouri, where the dioceses have spent only $25,000, the state Knights of Columbus chapter has chipped in $75,000.

In Nebraska, two ballot initiatives—one seeking to block abortion rights, the other to add it as a constitutional right—have attracted millions in spending, but none from that state’s dioceses. But two families of prominent Nebraska Catholics have contributed more than $6.6 million of the total $7 million donated to anti-abortion committees in the ballot initiative fight. 

Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and her son, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R), Nebraska’s junior senator, have contributed $5.1 million. The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including spending an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat. 

Two members of another family, the Peeds, who have recently become prominent donors in conservative political and Catholic circles, chipped in another $2 million. Family matriarch Rhonda Peed has said faith drives the family’s charitable giving, including some $1.8 million to the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the past two decades.

In Missouri, prominent conservative and anti-abortion attorney John Sauer has contributed roughly $757,000 to the fight over abortion. Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri, has represented anti-abortion groups in the past and successfully defended a Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse.

In January, Sauer represented former President Donald Trump in his successful claim before the US Supreme Court claiming broad presidential immunity. Missouri state campaign finance records show that this year Sauer gave $500,000 to Missouri Right to Life, which was spent to oppose an abortion-rights ballot initiative, and $257,000 to a political committee set up specifically to oppose the initiative as well.

Representatives from the Sioux Falls Diocese and the Denver Archdiocese did not respond to interview requests.

In all 10 states with abortion ballot measures, Catholic groups and dioceses are working to oppose abortion-rights amendments with mailings, bishops’ statements, videos, prayers and other resources in English and Spanish. Says Morris of Missouri: “It’s kind of an all-of-the-above approach.”

Yet, the effectiveness of church attempts at persuasion are questionable. A recent poll of Catholic voters in seven battleground states found that the hierarchy’s influence on voters in their flock is extremely limited. Only 32 percent said bishops were very or somewhat influential in voting decisions, and 37 percent said priests were, according to the poll, which was conducted by the National Catholic Reporter.

Political strategies, like funding statewide anti-abortion initiatives, is only a part of conservative Catholics’ “long game,” according to Mary Jo McConahay, author of Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right. 

Legal activist Leonard Leo, for example, has turned his attention from the US Supreme Court to a web of Catholic organizations aimed at instilling traditionalist values in the broader culture.

“I think ultraconservative Catholic intellectuals are leaning now in the direction of changing culture itself to achieve their various goals, including demonizing—or criminalizing—abortion, homosexuality, transgender people, etc., which also would move the country closer toward Christian nationalism,” McConahay said. “As long as the majority of the voting population is pro-abortion, Catholic money may start to go to this kind of longer-term effort, rather than fighting ballot measures.”

This story has been updated to reflect additional donations.