At Private Dinners, Pence Quietly Courts Big Donors and Corporate Executives
Mr. Pence’s activities have fueled speculation among Republican insiders that he is laying the foundation for his own political future, independent from Mr. Trump.
If nothing else, the assiduous donor maintenance by Mr. Pence and his team reflects his acceptance of a Washington reality that Mr. Trump sharply criticized during the campaign, when he assailed some of his party’s most generous donors as puppet masters who manipulated the political process to further their own interests at the expense of working people. Mr. Trump frequently said that because of his own real estate fortune, he didn’t need or want support from wealthy donors or the political groups known as “super PACs,” to which donors can give seven-figure donations and which Mr. Trump blasted as “very corrupt.”
.. Mr. Pence’s office declined to release the lists of guests invited to the dinners, which have not appeared on schedules released by the vice president’s office to the news media. Marc Lotter, Mr. Pence’s press secretary, called the dinners “private” and said that the vice president had not held any political fund-raisers at his residence
.. Mr. Pence, who came to Mr. Trump’s ticket with a reputation as an enthusiastic cultivator of wealthy patrons, has worked to win over donors who clashed with Mr. Trump during the campaign, among them the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch.
.. In May, Mr. Obst and Mr. Ayers founded Great America Committee, a political action committee to fund Mr. Pence’s political operation — an unusual step for a sitting vice president. Typically, vice presidents rely on their respective party committees for such functions.