Fitton declined to identify other attendees, and the Trump White House has abandoned a longtime practice of publicly releasing visitor logs. Robert Mercer became co-CEO at Renaissance, or RenTech, in November 2009 as the federal government was cracking down on abuses that had contributed to the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Depression. 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. Bob has always been very good at leveraging his money. “He’s not the first person in history to use money in politics, but in my view Trump wouldn’t be President if not for Bob. “Bob (Mercer) has always been very good at leveraging his money” in both business and politics, said Nick Patterson, a Renaissance co-founder and former intelligence code-breaker who recruited Mercer to the hedge fund in 1993. Mercer has called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a mistake and has voiced disdain for other federal measures to protect the rights of African-Americans and other minorities. The Mercers’ struggle didn’t end with Trump’s election. Is the president of the United States going to succumb to that or is he not? “He’s trying to put someone in there who’s going to drop the case. Multiple sources described him as animated mainly by hatred of Hillary Clinton. By 2016, Renaissance’s founder and chairman, Jim Simons, was one of the Democratic Party’s top backers, and Mercer was a leading Republican donor, making RenTech a leading player in national politics. But by 2008, under the supervision of Mercer’s ardently conservative daughter, Rebekah, the foundation began giving millions of dollars to interconnected nonprofit groups, several of which played crucial roles in propagating attacks on Hillary Clinton. By 2015, the most recent year for which federal tax records are available, the foundation had grown into a $24.5-million operation that gave large sums to ultraconservative organizations. Mercer also invested some five million dollars in Cambridge Analytica, a firm that mines online data to reach and influence potential voters. Years before he started supporting Trump, he began funding several conservative activists, including Steve Bannon; as far back as 2012, Bannon was the Mercers’ de-facto political adviser. But in 2014, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a blistering report detailing Renaissance’s use of so-called “basket options” trades by its employees-only Medallion Fund to slash taxes on $34 billion in profits. According to Senate investigators, Renaissance had presented countless short-term trades as long-term ones, improperly avoiding some $6.8 billion in taxes. Is the president of the United States going to succumb to that or is he not?” 
 
 “Are we going to have a commissioner of the IRS who aggressively enforces the law and takes good cases to Tax Court or (somebody who) just throws away tax cases so billionaires don’t have to pay their taxes and the rest of us can pay more taxes?” 
 
 The case against Renaissance was initiated before Koskinen became commissioner. In 2011, Bannon drafted a business plan for the Mercers that called for them to invest ten million dollars in Breitbart News, in exchange for a large stake. David Bossie, who is president of both Citizens United entities, and Rebekah Mercer collaborated on the super PAC that backed Trump and later as members of Trump’s transition team. So far, he said, Trump “has been remarkably restrained regarding the IRS.” 
 
 The guy’s got a big case in front of the IRS. The Mercers’ foundation gave nearly $11 million from 2011 to 2014 to the Media Research Center, an advocacy group whose “sole mission,” according to its website, “is to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media.” 
 
 In a rare public statement weeks before Trump’s upset victory, the Mercers said they believe that “America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite.” 
 
 “Trump is channeling this disgust,” they said, “and those among the political elite who quake before the boom-box of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces.” 
 
 In 2010, the same year the IRS issued its memo, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling lifting restraints on how much money wealthy donors such as the Mercers may spend to influence election outcomes. The Mercer Family Foundation, run by Rebekah Mercer, also has donated millions of dollars to conservative nonprofit groups that have called for the firing of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, an Obama administration holdover whose five-year term expires in November.
– Two key facts about billionaire Robert Mercer: He is, in the words of a recent New Yorker profile, the "reclusive hedge-fund tycoon behind the Trump presidency." Second, the IRS is going after his Renaissance Technologies fund for nearly $7 billion in back taxes. All of which sets up a dicey situation for President Trump, as a story at McClatchy News Service explains. Mercer wants IRS chief John Koskinen booted from office, and he's pushing Trump to fire him before his five-year term expires in November. The president has not tipped his hand on whether he'll do that, but it makes for "bad optics," per the chief ethics adviser in the George W. Bush White House. "The guy’s got a big case in front of the IRS," says Richard Painter. "He’s trying to put someone in there who’s going to drop the case. Is the president of the United States going to succumb to that?" Mercer, whose daughter Rebekah is a major political player on the right as well, ramped up political contributions to conservative groups after the IRS began investigating his fund's use of a complicated banking method known as "basket options" in 2010 to cut its tax bill, reports McClatchy. The method involves converting short-term gains on trades into long-term gains, which are taxed at a lower rate. The IRS does not comment on ongoing cases, but a Senate panel accused the fund of short-changing the agency of at least $6.8 billion. The company has maintained that it did nothing illegal. One thing that could work in the Mercers' favor: They have long ties to top Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Still, a Columbia professor says that even if the Mercers succeed in getting Koskinen fired, it's doubtful that would upend a years-long IRS case.