West Michigan’s Wealthiest Families funded the Trump Transition after the 2016 Election

I recently came across an article on from the well-researched site of the Center for Public Integrity (CPI). 

The article is about the corporations and billionaires in the country that provided funding to Donald Trump after the 2016 Election in November.

According to CPI, “The nonprofit formed to handle President Donald Trump’s transition raised about $6.5 million in private contributions, fueled in part by corporate interests, billionaires and lobbyists, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of a new federal filing.”

According to Federal law, the transition of administrations only allows donations up to $5,000 at one time. This money is separate from the money raised during the election and could only be used after the election results were in. As you can see from the list below, most of these contributions took place in December of 2016.

Amongst the billionaires who contributed to Donald Trump’s transition to the White House, were the DeVos Family and the DeWitt Family (from Holland).

Other notable contributors to the Trump Transition were Mark Meijer ($5,000 on 12/14/2016) and Peter Secchia ($5,000 on 12’15/2016)

Again, this money is separate from the millions of dollars contributed by these same billionaires to the Republican Party before the 2016 Election. You can research this data from the Center for Responsible Politics, especially through their local search engine. Here is a link to the data from the 49503 zip code, which is where the DeVos Family claims to reside. The reality is that the 49503 zip is where their Grand Rapids headquarters are for the Windquest Group, RDV Corp and all the various family foundations.

This information is important as a reminder that these families helped to elect an administration that has been waging war on immigrants, the black community, organized labor, the LGBTQ community, women, working class families, the environment and public health. It is also important to mention that the Trump administration has been involved in war crimes abroad, selling weapons to dictatorships and creating greater political instability around the world.