Chuck Darwin<p><a href="https://c.im/tags/Peltz" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Peltz</span></a>, the billionaire who hosted fellow Republican donors in Palm Beach, <br>also had direct access to the White House. </p><p>A few months after Trump’s Inauguration, he met privately with the President in the Oval Office, presenting him with a written dossier that made the case that Amazon <br>and its owner, Jeff Bezos, <br>were responsible for the economic woes of the U.S. Postal Service. </p><p>Trump, who had long attacked Bezos as the proprietor of the Washington Post, <br>summoned a senior official to hear Peltz’s complaint. </p><p>According to the official, Peltz told Trump that<br> “the reason why the Post Office is in the red is almost entirely because of Amazon,” <br>claiming, falsely, <br>that it received preferential rates, <br>benefitted from “unfair competition,” <br>and ought to be considered an antitrust violator.</p><p>Trump’s staff tried to figure out what Peltz’s interest was in the matter. </p><p>It turned out that Trian Fund Management, Peltz’s asset-management firm, <br>had recently taken a $3.5-billion stake in Procter & Gamble, <br>the consumer-products giant. </p><p>Peltz, an activist investor who buys his way into corporate-leadership roles, <br>often by prompting proxy fights, <br>considered Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods a threat to his business. </p><p>On December 29, 2017, Trump tweeted, </p><p>“Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!”</p><p>...<br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Isaac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Isaac</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Perlmutter" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Perlmutter</span></a>, the former head of Marvel Entertainment, <br>which he sold to Disney, in 2009, for $4 billion, <br>was also at Peltz’s breakfast for Trump in Palm Beach. </p><p>(Trump personally introduced the pair at Mar-a-Lago, where Perlmutter has a regular table next to the ex-President’s; </p><p>last year, Peltz and Perlmutter joined forces when Peltz launched an unsuccessful bid to win a seat on Disney’s board.) </p><p>Perlmutter donated $5 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign; </p><p>his wife, <a href="https://c.im/tags/Laura" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Laura</span></a>, was a member of Trump’s Inauguration committee. </p><p>Soon after Trump became President, he installed Perlmutter and two of Perlmutter’s friends from Florida as de-facto overseers of the Department of Veterans Affairs, <br>an agency with an annual budget of some $200 billion. </p><p>“On any veterans issue the first person the President calls is Ike,” <br>a former Administration official told ProPublica, which revealed the arrangement.</p>