Nearly a month after the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we still don’t have a clear understanding of how it happened or who, exactly, was behind it.
Instead of uncovering the root causes of a riot that ultimately left seven people dead, too much of the public conversation continues to center on what Donald Trump said when. But to prevent further far-right violence, we must dig deep beneath superficial narratives to follow the money.
The Intercept has been investigating the rise of right-wing extremism for years and exposing how billionaires like the Mercer family have bankrolled a host of individuals and groups involved in the storming of the Capitol.
Uncovering the deep pockets behind this ongoing threat is a complex and expensive reporting challenge, requiring a team of researchers, technologists, and lawyers to pore over thousands of pages of documents. Since our website doesn't have ads or a paywall, we rely on donations from readers like you to continue this project.
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
Make no mistake: the violent extremists who attacked the Capitol on January 6 didn’t emerge out of thin air. They were funded and nurtured by right-wing billionaires like the Mercer family.
As Intercept contributor Matthew Cunningham-Cook has reported, the Mercer family is one of the most important funders of right-wing extremism:
- Rebekah Mercer is a principal investor in the Parler social media network, which was used to organize the January 6 insurrection. Mercer also has an equity stake in Breitbart News, which has propagated false information about election fraud.
- In 2014, Robert Mercer gave $150,000 to the Black Conservatives Fund, which promoted the January 6 march on Capitol Hill. Ali Alexander, one of the lead organizers of January 6, is a former adviser to the Black Conservatives Fund.
- In 2017, the Mercers gave $200,000 to the Gatestone Institute, which has advanced theories about a stolen election.
- The following year, they gave $8.1 million to DonorsTrust, which recently donated $1.5 million to white nationalist hate group VDARE, which has also advanced evidence-free theories surrounding the 2020 election results.
- In 2017 and 2018, the Mercer Family Foundation donated over $2 million to the Government Accountability Institute, whose research director, Eric Eggers, appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show to suggest that fraudulent activity had tilted the election to Joe Biden.
- Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who has also used violent rhetoric around the election, has received $21,600 in campaign contributions from the Mercer family.
- The Mercers were the biggest donors to the super PAC of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, one of the most prominent activists whose rhetoric helped create the conditions for the January 6 attack.
And just in case the Mercers’ goals weren’t obvious based on where they put their money, The Intercept reported last week on a 2019 book by Rebekah Mercer raising the specter of “armed conflict.”
That’s just a brief summary of what we know so far about just one major funder. But given the delay in nonprofit organizations in releasing tax statements and the ease of hiding dark-money donations, there’s far more work to do in the months and years to come to uncover all the donors and activists who created the conditions that made January 6 possible.
Your donation will help provide the resources we need to keep digging and to uncover the network of funders and dark-money organizations behind the rise of far-right extremism.
