Fundraising List Leaked: Major Tech and Defense Firms Donate to Build White House Banquet Hall, with Contributions Coinciding Closely with Favorable Regulatory Decisions
A report by The Washington Post reveals that many of the donors behind the Trump White House Banquet Hall project are entities that benefited during his administration.
Journalists obtained an internal donor list for the White House Banquet Hall initiative, which was spearheaded by President Donald Trump. Private contributions totaled $333 million, with Nvidia, Apple, the Adelson family, and billionaire Charles Egon each making the largest individual donations of $25 million. While the publication does not assert that these contributions constituted bribery in exchange for government policy, it notes that multiple donation timelines align closely with favorable regulatory or governmental decisions affecting the donors.
The article highlights the case of Julio Herrera Velutini, an international banker holding dual citizenship in Venezuela and Italy. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with bribery, alleging he funded a campaign for the then-governor of Puerto Rico in exchange for removing regulators overseeing his bank. The banker and his legal team attempted to dismiss the case but were unsuccessful. In August 2025, charges were reduced to a misdemeanor under a plea agreement.
Following Trump’s election victory, Herrera’s daughter, Isabella Herrera, made two donations totaling $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., a political committee. The Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), arguing that the daughter acted as a front for her father. The organization noted that the 25-year-old self-employed financial advisor had only one prior donation record—$20. The FEC has yet to respond. One month after the plea agreement was signed, on September 23, 2025, Isabella Herrera pledged a $2.5 million contribution to the banquet hall project and paid the first installment of $835,000 on October 14—details previously undisclosed. The second payment was scheduled for the following month. In January of the following year, Trump granted a pardon to her father. Her father’s lawyer subsequently stated that the client expressed deep gratitude toward the president. Trump also pardoned the former governor of Puerto Rico and his political adviser, with the White House asserting that the prosecutions were politically motivated. Neither the banker nor his daughter responded to inquiries from the newspaper.
The list obtained by the publication is an internal fundraising spreadsheet documenting all 67 donations exceeding $10,000 received by late September. It includes donor sources, dates, and amounts. At least $77 million came from anonymous contributors. Google contributed $22 million, sourced from settlement proceeds in Trump’s lawsuit against YouTube. A foundation linked to a former Marvel executive donated $20.27 million; Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Palantir, and an entity affiliated with Rocket Companies each gave $10 million. Nvidia requested confidentiality for its $25 million donation, despite CEO Jensen Huang having publicly acknowledged it. The contribution was made roughly three months after Nvidia reached an agreement with Trump on export controls for high-performance chips to China.
Trump himself is not listed among the donors. Last year, he claimed: “This project is 100 percent funded by me and a few friends.” Funds were raised through the nonprofit National Mall Trust Fund and transferred to government accounts and the White House account controlled by the president. Some construction costs have already been covered by federal budget appropriations. Nearly half of the donations originated from companies and executives who secured federal contracts during Trump’s second term.
Other cases include Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, halting an investigation into EchoStar, Charles Egon’s company, shortly before Egon pledged a $25 million donation. Subsequently, the FCC and DOJ approved the sale of certain spectrum licenses. About three weeks after regulatory approval for the acquisition of Mr. Cooper by a Rocket Companies-affiliated entity, that entity committed a $10 million donation. Salesforce and its CEO Marc Benioff made three separate $1 million donations. Between two of those donations, the U.S. Army signed a contract with the company, with potential total value reaching up to $5.6 billion by 2035.
The internal donor list lays bare the origins of funding and beneficiaries tied to the White House Banquet Hall project. What stands out is not any single donation, but the striking coincidence between donation timing, regulatory actions, government contracts, and presidential pardons.
The issue extends beyond who donated—it lies in the lack of transparency surrounding the donation mechanism. These funds did not enter through standard political contribution channels. Instead, they were collected by the nonprofit National Mall Trust Fund and channeled into government and White House accounts under presidential control. The agreement between the White House and the trust fund mandates confidentiality of donor identities within legal limits.
This arrangement means donors face neither the public disclosure requirements of political contributions nor the same level of oversight under campaign finance regulations. Critics argue such a structure may enable corporations or individuals to secure regulatory leniency, government contracts, or presidential pardons without external scrutiny.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1879450369420291/
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