Hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer, one of the biggest financial backers of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, was sued by a former employee who claims he was fired for calling Mercer racist and publicly criticizing his support of Trump.
The complaint by David Magerman, a research scientist who worked at Renaissance Technologies LLC for two decades, alleges he was wrongfully fired April 29 after his relationship with Mercer and his family became toxic. For example, Magerman alleges that Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah Mercer, a member of Trump’s transition team, called him “pond scum” at a celebrity poker tournament.
The confrontation "just shows the hostility that the Mercers had toward Mr. Magerman because he dared to challenge their political views," his lawyer, H. Robert Fiebach, said in a phone call on Monday.
Mercer, a major investor in Trump-friendly Breitbart News, advised the president to hire two of the Mercer family’s longtime political advisers, Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Mercer’s politics have "tainted" the hedge fund, while internal policies that prohibit "politely" speaking out against the company in public are "unfair and untenable," Magerman said in the complaint, filed May 5 in federal court in Philadelphia.
A spokesman for Renaissance had no immediate comment. Mercer emerged as one of the most influential Republican donors in the 2016 election, giving at least $2 million to Make America Number 1, a political action committee that began backing Trump in July. Rebekah Mercer was named to Trump’s transition team in November.
More:
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-08/trump-backer-mercer-sued-by-employee-fired-after-speaking-outBloomberg has this under politics. I disagree, despite the author's heavy use of both shoehorn and pinchbar to get Trump into the article, so into National it goes!
