Billionaire Donates 98% of Private Funds Raised for Texas Border Wall
(Worthy News) – An out-of-state billionaire who has previously bankrolled attempts to defend controversial immigration laws is responsible for nearly all the donations to Gov. Greg Abbott’s $54 million border wall fund.
A member of one of America’s richest family dynasties, Timothy Mellon, contributed nearly 98% of the fund’s total donations when he donated $53.1 million in stock to the state in August, according to public records. Mellon is the 79-year-old Wyoming-based grandson of banking tycoon and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.
Before Mellon’s donations, Abbott’s private fundraising campaign had stalled at about $1.25 million around mid-August, two months after its launch — a drop in the bucket for a project with a price tag estimated in the billions of dollars. But on Aug. 27, a state website that tracks donations to the crowdfunding effort said the fund had jumped to nearly $19 million. By the end of the month, it had topped $54 million. [ Source: Texas Tribune (Read More…) ]