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By Aiden Pink October 30, 2017

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told President Trump that he was going “off the chain” to destroy Republican megadonor Paul Singer because of Singer’s funding of anti-Trump research during the 2016 presidential campaign, the news website Axios reported Sunday.

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded largely by Singer, admitted last week that they had paid the research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump and other Republican primary candidates. Fusion GPS’s findings, including allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia, have reportedly been used by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Bannon, now the head of the conservative website Breitbart, told Trump in a Friday phone call that he had long been wanting “to set things right with Singer and his entire crew,” Axios reporting. Singer was a harsh critic of Trump as a candidate, claiming that Trump’s policies were “close to a guarantee of a global depression, widespread global depression.” But Singer and Trump grew closer after the inauguration, with Singer donating $1 million toward the inauguration and frequently visiting the White House.

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“Bannon has long despised Singer,” Axios’s Jonathan Swan wrote. “In Bannon’s worldview, Singer belongs to a ‘globalist’ cabal that favors open borders and includes other bogeymen and bogeywomen such as George Soros and Hillary Clinton.” But despite this, Trump reportedly said after the Bannon call that Singer is still “on the team.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

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