A self-described former liberal, he had little history of multi-million-dollar political contributions before pouring more than $40 million into Republican groups since 2018. Seeking fewer people and lower taxes, he moved to Wyoming from Connecticut 15 years ago, as he detailed in a self-published autobiography in 2015. He made a splash in 2010 by giving $1.5 million to the legal defense of Arizona’s strict immigration law, which was later partly struck down by the Supreme Court. During a brief phone interview last month, Mr. Mellon repeatedly criticized the credibility of this newspaper and declined to answer questions about his political giving or his support of Mr. Trump. And his 2010 donation to Arizona’s legal defense, unmentioned in the memoir, signaled his support of the restrictive immigration policies for which the future President Trump would go on to fight.

Source: New York Times August 16, 2020 16:30 UTC