About a month ago, The New York Times had a striking report about a Venezuelan-Italian banker who was facing a variety of serious felony charges, right up until his daughter made a generous contribution to MAGA Inc., a super PAC devoted to Donald Trump and run by his allies. The president signed a pardon for the banker soon after.
A week later, the Times had a separate report on the nursing home industry, which hoped to block a Biden-era policy that would have required increased staffing levels. The industry started writing a series of generous checks to the same Trump-aligned super PAC, and soon after, Trump administration officials abandoned their support for the policy the industry opposed.
It was against this backdrop that the Times added a new installment to the series on Saturday:
Less than one month before meeting with a top administration official to lobby against a new bridge connecting Michigan with Canada, the billionaire owner of an existing bridge donated $1 million to a super PAC devoted to President Trump.
Matthew Moroun, a Detroit-based trucking magnate whose family has operated the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for decades, made the donation to MAGA Inc. on Jan. 16, according to a campaign finance report filed on Friday evening.
This controversy, dubbed Trump’s “Bridgegate” by The Wall Street Journal, has been simmering in recent weeks, and it already looked pretty bad.
At issue is the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will soon link Michigan and Ontario, and which Trump endorsed in his first term.
Two weeks ago, however, the Republican incumbent reversed course and announced plans to prevent the bridge from opening unless Canada agreed to meet his undefined demands. (The same missive said China has a fiendish plot to ban hockey in Canada, which I continue to find hilarious.)
Initially, it wasn’t at all clear what prompted Trump’s declaration, right up until we learned that a Michigan billionaire, Matthew Moroun, had met privately with administration officials, lobbying against the bridge. His motivation was obvious: Moroun owns a separate bridge that connects Michigan and Canada, and as former Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan explained in a piece for MS NOW, he wants to maintain a near-monopoly with his single, privately owned toll bridge.
The Times’ latest reporting, however, made a bad story look worse. Consider a brief timeline:
- Jan. 16: Moroun gives $1 million to MAGA Inc.
- Feb. 9, midday: Moroun meets Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
- Feb. 9, evening: Trump abandons his own position and says what Moroun wanted to hear.
Spokespersons for MAGA Inc. and the White House insisted that the president’s position was unrelated to the super PAC contribution.
But given the recent pattern, it’s tough to ignore the pay-for-play appearances in an administration for which corruption allegations have become the norm.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
