Republican candidates who solicited from Trump now reluctantly criticize him

Republican rivals are trying desperately to dent Donald Trump, as he leads in polls, dominates media coverage and builds a campaign organization using his personal wealth. But not long ago, they came to him with hats in hand.

Internal memos obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and public filings, show that officials courted the celebrity magnate for years, seeking and receiving ever-increasing donations, especially to GOPrelated organizations trying to elect more governors and senators. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who recently criticized Mr. Trump, was notably successful at convincing the developer and beauty pageant owner to write checks.

Now Mr. Trump is at the head of a Republican presidential field that includes eight current or former governors and four current or former senators, with the first televised debate set for Thursday.

That scenario — political sugar daddy turning into nemesis — is both fairly novel and

likely uncomfortable, according to Robert Mutch, author of last year’s “Buying the Vote: A History of Campaign Finance Reform.”

“What’s going on is certainly something new and a little disturbing,” Mr. Mutch said Friday. “The Republicans always had a pretty strict division of labor. The rich guys gave the money. The party selected the candidates and ran the campaigns.”

Mr. Christie proved his fundraising prowess last year when he was head of the Republican Governors Association, which swept in $94 million and spent $140 million on its way to raising the number of states headed by GOP executives to 31. Mr. Trump gave $250,000 to the RGA during Mr. Christie’s one-year tenure.

That courtship of Mr. Trump has roots going back to 2010, during Mr. Christie’s first year as governor, and thus as a member of the RGA team.

A September 2010 note in a Republican fundraiser’s files suggests that Mr. Trump “can write a huge check if he’s so inclined. Try for the biggest amount possible and ask if he might host an event for the RGA.”

The RGA’s related memo to Mr. Christie read: “Please ask for $50,000 to renew his membership with the RGA’s Executive Roundtable program. The Executive Roundtable has over 500 members so far who believe in the conservative ideals of keeping taxes low and keeping the free enterprise system intact.”

Even a $25,000 contribution, the fundraiser wrote, would allow Mr. Trump to participate in a dinner at the Four Seasons in New York with Gov. Christie, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Tom Corbett, who was then Pennsylvania’s attorney general. He’d also get to attend the Executive Roundtable’s fall meeting in New York that October.

A note written around a week after the first, though, suggested that Mr. Trump had his limits. “Chris spoke to [Trump] and he wants to write a check and collect checks [doesn’t want to host an event],” the fundraiser noted.

Mr. Trump came through with a $50,000 donation to the RGA on September 29, 2010, according to the contribution database of the Center for Responsive Politics.

On Sept. 30, 2010, an RGA fundraiser instructed thengubernatorial candidate Corbett to call Mr. Trump, use the salutation “Donald,” and ask him for $25,000.

“You recognize that he has made a recent contribution to the RGA for Gov. Christie — would he consider an additional $25,000 for a total of $75,000 this year — your same level as last year?” the fundraiser wrote to Mr. Corbett, then the attorney general and Republican gubernatorial nominee. The suggested pitch: “Like Chris, I have my own fundraising goal with the RGA and your additional contribution of $25,000 will help me personally.”

Mr. Trump gave the organization $20,000 on Oct. 19 of that year, and another $25,000 on Nov. 9, according to the Center for Responsive Politics database.

Neither Mr. Trump’s campaign nor a spokesman for former Gov. Corbett responded to repeated requests for comment made Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Mr. Christie’s campaign referred questions to the RGA’s spokesman, Jon Thompson, who did not respond to email or voice mail inquiries.

Mr. Trump gave the RGA $100,000 in 2012 and again in 2013, then $250,000 in March, according to the organization’s disclosures to the IRS.

Mr. Christie had seemed reticent to criticize Mr. Trump. On Tuesday, though, the governor told CNBC that Mr. Trump's idea that the U.S. could get the Mexican government to pay for a wall at the border “hurts the credibility of the presidency. You have to have some experience in [the] actual difficulty of governing … You need to understand how you have to work with other people, how if you disagree with someone, you can’t just fire them. ... I don’t think it’s in the best interests of your party to have someone who I don’t think would be an effective president to be the nominee.”

The RGA, under Mr. Christie, was the biggest recipient of Mr. Trump's federal political giving, but not the only one.

Next up, during the 2013-14 political cycle, were the the Republican National Committee, to which the businessman donated $74,800; Super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, which backs Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, $60,000; the National Republican Senatorial Committee, $64,800; and the Republican Party of South Carolina, $10,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Last month, after Mr. Trump said that Arizona Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was “not a war hero,” several other presidential candidates and other Republican notables rebuked him. Mr. McConnell was one of the more circumspect, saying publicly, “John McCain is a hero,” but declining to criticize Mr. Trump.

Eight of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the nomination are current or former governors. They are Mr. Christie, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Jeb Bush of Florida, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and George Pataki of New York.

“I guess they’ve got to tread softly. They do owe him a lot. A lot of them have obligations to him,” said Frank Askin, director of the Constitutional Rights Clinic at Rutgers Law School and an election law professor. “They’re afraid of his money.”