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Bill Pulte’s family has ties to “The Family,” secretive Christian org with vast political influence - Salon.com.Incoming acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte’s family has had extensive ties over two generations to leaders and financial backers of a secretive Christian organization that conducts shadow diplomacy around the world, according to public records and documents I obtained.Pulte’s grandfather, at one point one of the wealthiest men in the world, built a Fortune 500 company and gave tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to charity before his 2018 death.He was also friends with Doug Coe, died in 2017 after decades leading the secretive, controversial Fellowship Foundation that built and sustained a global right-wing network including dictators, lobbyists, and corrupt millionaires largely united against labor, LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.Better known as The Family, The Fellowship runs the National Prayer Breakfast and the congressional residence on Capitol Hill called C Street.Pulte’s father, Mark, like others of the patriarch’s progeny, has kept a hand in the grandfather’s work, including funding religious charities with Fellowship ties.It’s not clear whether Pulte’s grandfather, after whom he’s named, passed on any of his Fellowship relationships to his grandson.If Pulte is personally connected to The Fellowship, he’d hardly be alone in the administration’s upper ranks.Secretary of State Marco Rubio used to live at the C Street townhouse, as did Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the United Kingdom, former “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett, is a regular at The Fellowship’s National Prayer Breakfast.That said, I found no public indication that Pulte has direct, personal ties to The Fellowship.Coe died in 2017 and even before that, Pulte’s philanthropy focused primarily on giving cash to individuals rather than charities pushing the theocratic vision common among Fellowship recipients.But Pulte also claimed to have been uniquely close to his grandfather, Coe’s close friend.It’s not surprising that the Pulte family, based in Michigan, has ties to Fellowship insiders and funders.The Fellowship has had a strong presence among Michigan’s wealthy for decades.But the ties extend beyond overlapping at religious charities in the orbits of Michigan philanthropists.Pulte had a significant personal relationship with Coe, who hobnobbed with presidents of both parties and leaders of nations around the world.A 2019 tribute after the elder Pulte’s death, in a publication of one of his charities, said: “Bill had a global vision rooted in his deep faith in Jesus Christ.He connected his vision and faith, joining with other philanthropists and leaders (including former President George W.Bush in Washington, D.C.for prayer breakfasts where they prayed together for world peace.” In an interview just last month, Rabbi Jack Bemporad recalled “we used to go to Doug’s place,” presumably referring to Coe’s Arlington, Va., home.Bemporad was a collaborator with the elder Pulte on a project of profound personal importance: Crafting a prayer for peace so universal it would foster world peace.(It has yet to achieve progress toward this aim.) Coe assembled a group of eight to craft it, so the finished prayer would be inclusive enough to be universally unifying.(The group is pictured in the screengrab at the top of this article.) The tallest figure, to Pulte’s immediate right, is A.Larry Ross, a Fellowship spokesperson and past board member.Ross was one of the key figures I identified a few years ago as part of The Fellowship’s radicalization of Mike Lindell.The smiling group of eight at some point found themselves at odds with each other over their unifying prayer.The ties extend beyond overlapping at religious charities in the orbits of Michigan philanthropists.Pulte had a significant personal relationship with Coe, who hobnobbed with presidents of both parties and leaders of nations around the world.According to Bemporad in his interview last month, the elder Pulte took his idea for a prayer to Clark Durant, an occasional Republican candidate and former vice president at Hillsdale College, an oasis for theocratic right-wing academia.Durant brought in Coe.Coe brought in the others.Some on the team of eight felt the prayer should be Christian.Pulte and Bemporad, the rabbi, did not, Bemporad says.“[T]hat was something that divided us.” They worked on it for more than a year, with weekly prayer group meetings.(You can read the final prayer at Bemporad’s website.) Whatever divide arose between Coe and Pulte apparently wasn’t deep or permanent.Fellowship spreadsheets I obtained several years ago list Pulte as attending the 2015 and 2016 prayer breakfasts, one year with his wife.The 2016 spreadsheet identifies who invited each guest, and the Pultes were invited by Coe.Back home, Pulte’s circle included another Coe disciple, a Michigan business leader named Mike Timmis, who facilitated Fellowship mission work known as Cornerstone Development in Uganda.The Fellowship liaison backed by Timmis helped lead a parliamentary prayer group that ultimately enacted the death penalty for LGBTQ+ people there.Timmis and Pulte helped get Cornerstone Schools off the ground in Michigan in the early 1990s.Durant, who knew Coe, approached both of them for help.The 1991 articles of incorporation list Durant, Timmis, and Timmis’s wife as incorporators.Timmis and Durant raised $1.2 million.Pulte kicked in the final $22 million, according to a story told by Mark Pulte.The elder Pulte, Mark’s father and grandfather of the incoming acting intelligence director, poured “tens of millions” into the schools over the years, reportedly.(He also sold a home to Timmis’s son — another disciple of Coe’s — after building a development in Ave Maria, Fla., when Timmis’s son chaired the board of Ave Maria University.) By ten years in, The Fellowship itself had begun donating to the schools, tax records show.The Fellowship’s 2002 tax filing shows $2,000 going to Cornerstone Schools.In 2003, someone at The Fellowship appears to have confused Timmis’s Cornerstone Schools in Detroit with Timmis’s Cornerstone Development in Uganda.Another $2,000 is listed for Cornerstone Schools that year “to assist the inner city schools in Uganda,” which is what Cornerstone Schools does in Detroit and Cornerstone Development does not do in Uganda’s inner-city schools.By 2005, the regular $2,000 Fellowship donation to Cornerstone Schools in Detroit was back.And by 2012, two generations of Pultes were involved.Bill Pulte’s father, Mark, appears on the board that year.Outside of Michigan, there’s little sign of Pulte family financial involvement in Fellowship endeavors.Pulte’s grandmother, who’s still living, has donated reliably to Republican political campaigns, but her only notable Fellowship recipient is Rep.Tim Walberg (R-MI), who got $1,000 in 2010, years before The Fellowship flew him to Uganda to bolster allies there under international pressure for their LGBTQ+ death penalty.Pulte the grandson hasn’t donated to any prominent Fellowship candidates.If anything, the younger Pulte’s donations veer more toward the bombastic right.There’s a distinct gap between grandfather and grandson donations.The older, ecumenical Fortune 500 billionaire donated more than $30,000 in 2012 to committees supporting Mitt Romney.They were his last.The next donation by a William Pulte came in 2019, when only the grandson of that name was left.He gave $35,000 to the Trump Victory committee.There is one intriguing thread that leads to a largely invisible Fellowship leader said to be influential with Michigan Republicans and, allegedly, unnamed Democrats.In his 2022 book, Timmis wrote about a Fellowship associate named Charles McLeod.“He is responsible for bringing reconciliation to the Democrats and Republicans in the Michigan legislature and in the US Congress,” Timmis wrote.In practice this suggests that McLeod doesn’t have what m