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Thursday, Aug 23, 2012 4:48 PM UTC

Romney fund bankrolled Adelson

A fund Romney invested in lent the GOP mega-donor $3 million, according to newly uncovered documents

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Topics: Campaign Finance, 2012 Elections, Mitt Romney, Sheldon Adelson,

Romney fund bankrolled AdelsonSheldon Adelson (Credit: Reuters/Siu Chiu)

A fund partially owned by Mitt Romney lent GOP mega donor Sheldon Adelson’s company $3 million, according to hundreds of pages of previously confidential documents obtained by Gawker and published today.

Romney and his wife have millions of dollars invested  in a blind trust, which owns dozens of opaque funds and investment vehicles, including one called Sankaty High Yield Partners II LP.  The content of the fund and others like it were a mystery before the documents came to light. While there will undoubtedly be more discoveries to come from the cache, one immediate revelation is that Sankaty fund, based in Delaware for tax purposes, lent over $3 million to Las Vegas Sands, the casino company owned by Adelson. The fund made two loans of $2.4 million and $600,000 in 2009 to the Sands. Romney’s IRA held between $250,000 and $500,000 in the partnership, and made $50,000 and $100,000 from it in 2011.

Adelson has become the largest donor to the Republican Party and conservative outside groups, dropping at least $70 million. Adelson initially supported Newt Gingrich in the GOP primary, but switched his allegiance to Romney and has since given $10 million to the main super PAC backing the presumed GOP nominee.

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald. More Alex Seitz-Wald.

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