$570,300 total funded Donald Trump and his allies ever since Trump demonized people from Mexico in order to launch his presidential career, provided directly by Grupo Elektra’s US payday lender Purpose Financial ($255,000) and its political action committee ($315,300).
Washington DC, July 16, 2020 – The Trump Victory committee got $6,600 in October 2019 and February 2020 from the political action committee run by Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s US payday lender Purpose Financial, Purpose Financial Inc. PAC. Purpose Financial is 100% owned by Grupo Elektra, which is majority owned by Ricardo Salinas Pliego and his family.
During the Trump presidency, Trump’s Republican Party candidates and committees supporting Republicans collected $289,500 total from the Purpose Financial Inc. PAC for US House and Senate elections.
In total, Purpose Financial and its political action committee has distributed $570,300 to Donald Trump’s campaign, his administration, his inauguration, and his political allies since he first announced in 2015 his candidacy to be President of the United States by demonizing people from Mexico and promising he would make the Mexican people pay for his border wall:
- Donald Trump got a $250,000 check to fund his presidential inauguration celebration directly from Purpose Financial (then named Advance America) in December 2016.
- Trump got $10,000 in December 2016 for his official transition to take over the presidency after he won his election: $5,000 direct from Purpose Financial (as Advance America) and $5,000 from its political action committee.
- Purpose Financial’s political action committee also gave $14,200 during the 2016 election cycle to Republicans who supported building the wall and who won their elections to the US Congress and to the Texas governor who was reelected in 2018.
- $6,600 to the Trump Victory committee to reelect Donald Trump, a joint committee between the Trump campaign and the Republican Party, in Oct. 2019 and Feb. 2020, from Purpose Financial Inc PAC.
- the $289,500 to Republican candidates for Congress and committees aligned with the Republican Party in the time since Trump took office as president, from Purpose Financial Inc PAC.
Purpose Financial is allowed to absorb all the administrative costs of running its connected political action committee. The American managers of Purpose Financial make all political donation decisions for the political action committee, according to a company statement.
Purpose Financial (as Advance America) charged annual interest rates as high as 495% in the United States in 2010 and 2011 according to payday loan documents submitted to a US federal court.
Ramon Chedraui Eguia and Ricardo Salinas Pliego both are members of the board of directors of Circulo de Credito SA de CV according to online disclosure by the Mexico federal consumer financial protection agency on July 16, 2020.
Ricardo Salinas Pliego and family are one of the richest families in Mexico with a fortune worth over $10 billion on July 13, 2020 according to Forbes. Salinas Pliego was part of the Mexican delegation accompanying President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on his recent Washington trip.
Documentation of the donations is available online at: http://ChedrauiLeaks.org/RicardoSalinas/
About ChedrauiLeaks
ChedrauiLeaks is a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers, to investigate the connections between the Chedraui family and other Mexican elites and their links to business and property in the United States, the business and political activities of Mexican elites generally, and provide information about the struggle of El Super workers for a better life. ChedrauiLeaks is not stating that any members of the Chedraui family or their companies or Circulo de Credito have any involvement with Purpose Financial.