Speaking of Robert Mercer

This from May 1 of this year:

The Internal Revenue Service is demanding a whopping $7 billion or more in back taxes from the world’s most profitable hedge fund, whose boss’s wealth and cyber savvy helped Donald Trump pole-vault into the White House.

Suddenly, the government’s seven-year pursuit of Renaissance Technologies LLC is blanketed in political intrigue, now that the hedge fund’s reclusive, anti-establishment co-chief executive, Robert Mercer, has morphed into a political force who might be owed a big presidential favor.

[...]

Since the IRS found in 2010 that a complicated banking method used by Renaissance and about 10 other hedge funds was a tax-avoidance scheme, Mercer has gotten increasingly active in politics. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, he doled out more than $22 million to outside conservative groups seeking to influence last year’s elections, while advocating the abolition of the IRS and much of the federal government.

  McClatchy

This from a few days ago:

Members of the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Appeals are scheduled to meet with lawyers for Renaissance in New York on Nov. 7.

[...]

Although the dollar amount at issue has never been made public, Senate investigators estimated that Renaissance employees may have pocketed about $6.8 billion through what a bipartisan panel in 2014 called an “abusive” tax shelter.

  Bloomberg

So, by stepping down, does Mercer rid himself of liability for the back taxes and other tax schemes the company engaged in? Surely not, if he was in charge when it was happening. Or did something else, connected to Trump's Russia exposure, suddenly pop up? You know Mueller is looking into Trump's own tax affairs. Is there a connection to Renaissance Tech? Perhaps it's something personal regarding Mercer, and stepping down spares the rest of the company's execs and the company reputation?

Questions, questions.

And more intrigue:

Trump named David Kautter to become acting IRS commissioner after the term of John Koskinen, an appointee of Barack Obama, expires Nov. 12. Kautter doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Rootstrikers, a group critical of the Trump administration, began a petition drive Friday opposing the Kautter appointment, calling it an “end run around the Senate” that “could lead to a massive payback for billionaire Trump donor Robert Mercer.”

Remember Kautter?

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The fallout has only just begun

Trump donor Rebekah Mercer in August 2016 asked the chief executive of a data-analytics firm working for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign whether the company could better organize the Hillary Clinton -related emails being released by WikiLeaks, according to a person familiar with their email exchange.

The previously undisclosed details from the exchange between Ms. Mercer and Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix show how an influential Trump supporter was looking to leverage the hacked Clinton-related messages to boost Mr. Trump’s campaign.

[...]

In the email, Ms. Mercer asked Mr. Nix whether the suggested organization of the emails was something Cambridge Analytica or the Government Accountability Institute—a conservative nonprofit that focuses on investigative research—could do, the person said. Ms. Mercer has sat on the board of the institute, which has received funding from her family.

[...]

Cambridge Analytica is partly owned by Ms. Mercer and her father, hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer.

[...]

Ms. Mercer had a prominent role in the Trump campaign effort. The Mercer family gave $2 million to super PACs backing Mr. Trump. Beyond their donations, the Mercers were highly influential in the campaign: In August, about a week before Ms. Mercer sent her email regarding WikiLeaks, the Mercers recommended Mr. Trump install Mr. Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, two of their top allies, to lead his campaign. Mr. Trump heeded their advice.

[...]

As The Wall Street Journal previously reported, Ms. Mercer and a person close to her had a brief conversation regarding Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails in June 2016, a month after Mr. Cruz had dropped out of the race, the person said. The person said they discussed whether it would make sense to try to access and release those emails, but ultimately decided that looking for them would create “major legal liabilities” and would be a “terrible idea.”

  WSJ

One of many.

The Journal also reported that longtime Republican operative Peter W. Smith in 2016 mounted a campaign to obtain the same 33,000 emails, which he believed were stolen from Mrs. Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers. Mr. Smith died in mid-May at age 81.

And, suddenly, that's looking suspicious again.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is examining what, if any, role former Trump adviser and aide Mike Flynn may have played in Mr. Smith’s effort, as part of the larger probe into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, the Journal reported earlier this year.

And, today...

Robert Mercer, a billionaire investor who is a big financial backer of many conservative causes and a patron of the former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon, is stepping down as co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies, the giant hedge fund.

[...]

Beyond donating to political campaigns, Mr. Mercer was a large financial backer of Cambridge Analytica, a voter-data firm that worked with the presidential campaign of President Trump.

[...]

The one-paragraph letter to investors did not give a reason for Mr. Mercer’s decision.

[...]

In the letter on Thursday, Mr. Mercer said that he was selling his stake in Breitbart to his daughters “for personal reasons.”

  NYT

Not even holding his Breitbart stock? I smell fish.

Renaissance manages more than $50 billion in assets.

Whose assets? I smell fish.

The Mercers were responsible for bringing Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to the Trump team, so I've no doubt they were a lot deeper in the Russian hacking/collusion story than we've heretofore heard.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 5/2 18: