A tiny California tribe just donated $2 million to MAGA Inc. Here’s why.
A case study on how everything has a price in Trump’s Washington.
On March 5, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, a small Native American tribe based out of the Rumsey Indian Rancheria in California, donated $2 million to MAGA Inc., President Trump’s Super PAC. It was one of the largest donations MAGA Inc. has received this year and particularly remarkable, given that there are only 41 people on the Rumsey Indian Rancheria, according to the latest Census survey.
The story behind the Yocha Dehe’s extraordinary political contribution illustrates exactly how business is done in Trump’s Washington.
The Yocha Dehe operates the Cache Creek Casino Resort on the 185-acre Rumsey Rancheria in Brooks, California. For nearly a decade, the Yocha Dehe has been engaged in a legal dispute with the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, which is trying to build a casino on a 160-acre parcel in Vallejo, California, about 60 miles away.
Whether Scotts Valley can build its casino hinges on a technical determination by the Department of the Interior (DOI) about whether the site qualifies as “restored lands” — property with both a historical and modern connection to the tribe. On January 10, 2025, in the waning days of the Biden administration, Scotts Valley received some good news from the DOI. After many years of consideration, the DOI issued a detailed 30-page memorandum declaring the parcel qualified as restored land eligible for gaming.
But the Yocha Dehe was not ready to give up. Since 2019, the Yocha Dehe has been represented by Miller Strategies, a lobbying firm.
Jeff Miller, the founder of Miller Strategies, is one of the most powerful men in Trump’s Washington. In 2020, Miller bundled $11.2 million for Trump’s reelection campaign and raised another $100 million combined for Trump’s nominating convention and super PAC. In 2024, Miller co-hosted a fundraiser with Donald Trump Jr. that raised over $2 million for Trump. Miller also served as the finance chair of Trump’s 2025 inauguration, which raised nearly $250 million. Since Trump took office, Miller has been helping Trump raise hundreds of millions from corporations to construct a giant ballroom.
Miller himself says he works “the phones every single week to raise money, whether it’s for the House, the Senate, or for President Trump.” Politico suggested Miller was “the most powerful unelected man in DC.”
Before Trump’s 2024 election, the Yocha Dehe typically paid Miller Strategies about $50,000 per quarter. According to government filings, the Yocha Dehe was paying Miller Strategies exclusively for issues related to “COVID-19 financial relief legislation.” But after Trump won in November 2024, the Yocha Dehe began paying Miller Strategies $150,000 per quarter. The lobbying also concerned a new topic: The DOI’s “reconsideration” of its decision on Scotts Valley.
On January 7, 2025, the Yocha Dehe donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
As soon as the new administration took office in January 2025, the Miller Strategies team sprang into action. Emails and other documents obtained by Popular Information provide a rare glimpse into the Washington, D.C., influence industry under Trump. These documents were disclosed as part of the ongoing litigation between Scotts Valley and the DOI.
On January 31, 2025 — just 10 days after Trump took office — Ashley Gunn, a Miller Strategies lobbyist, emailed Alexander Meyer, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Gunn was well-positioned to navigate the Trump White House because she was Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs in the first Trump administration. She attached a white paper advocating for a reversal of the DOI’s January 10 decision. Gunn asked Meyer if he could help set up a meeting between the White House point person for Native American issues and Yocha Dehe leadership.
When Meyer didn’t immediately respond, Gunn followed up with a more urgent message on February 3, 2025: “Hate to bug you. If Scotts Valley Pomo Indians break ground before this is withdrawn it will be a terrible situation.”
The second email appeared to have the desired effect.
Later the same day, Gunn emailed Christine Glassner, the White House point person for issues related to local and tribal governments at the time. “Thank you so much for jumping on this. So grateful,” Gunn wrote. Glassner forwarded Gunn’s email to Laura Rigas, the DOI’s White House liaison, and Daniel Gustafson, the DOI’s Deputy Director for External Affairs, and asked them to “shed some light on this situation and the urgency of it.”
That got the ball rolling at the DOI, but Miller Strategies left no stone unturned. Miller Strategies also has a partnership with Checkmate Government Relations, another lobbying shop that has gained currency in D.C. because its founder, Ches McDowell, has a close relationship with Donald Trump Jr.
On February 5, 2025, McDowell emailed Wynn Radford, then Chief of Staff to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, with the subject line, “Scotts Valley Withdrawal Request.” Along with the white paper previously sent by Gunn, McDowell attached a draft of the letter that the Yocha Dehe wanted the DOI to issue: “Scotts Valley Draft Reconsideration Letter for Trump DOI (Final).” Radford forwarded the draft to other senior political appointees at DOI and asked if they could prepare “a letter for administrative stay” of the decision by “this evening.”
Some details of what happened over the next few weeks remain unknown because the DOI has refused to disclose various memos on the topic, citing deliberative privilege. But it’s clear that Gunn continued to press the issue.
Ken Bellmard, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, met with representatives from Yocha Dehe and another lobbyist, Aurene Martin, in early March. On March 19, 2025, Gunn spoke on the phone with Bellmard and followed up with an email. “Thank you so much for speaking with me today,” Gunn wrote, “[W]e appreciate your focus on this.”
In the March 19 email to Bellmard, Gunn requested that the DOI take “a two-step approach, where the first step is a letter informing Scotts Valley of the reconsideration and the second step is the substantive reconsideration process.” Gunn emphasized that “it’s important for the notice (the first step) to go out quickly.”
On March 20, 2025, according to internal DOI emails, Bellmard assigned two DOI lawyers a “task” related to Scotts Valley. That evening, the lawyers sent Bellmard a draft letter informing Scotts Valley that a reconsideration was underway — the exact approach Gunn had requested the previous day. After various DOI officials coordinated on a roll-out plan, it was finalized and released on March 26, 2025, less than a week later. (Due to a typographical error, a revised version was released on March 27.)
The letter informed Scotts Valley that the DOI was “temporarily rescinding the Gaming Eligibility Determination” while it reconsidered the issue. It warned that “[d]uring the pendency of this reconsideration, neither the Tribe nor any other entity or person should rely on the Gaming Eligibility Determination.”
Scotts Valley sued the DOI in federal court, arguing that the process that the DOI pursued was illegal. (Many of the documents in this article were disclosed during the discovery process.) On October 30, 2025, the court sided with Scotts Valley, finding that the DOI violated the tribe’s due process rights and reinstated Scotts Valley’s gaming eligibility. “While leaving Scotts Valley in the dark, the [DOI] communicated several times and even met with the neighboring tribes before the March rescission,” the court wrote in its order.
It was, however, a hollow victory. While the court formally reinstated Scotts Valley’s gaming eligibility for now, it allowed the DOI to continue its “reconsideration.” Until the DOI makes a final decision, Scotts Valley, as a practical matter, cannot build a casino because its gaming eligibility could be revoked at any time. The DOI is expected to issue a final decision later this year.
The Yocha Dehe donated $2 million to MAGA Inc. on March 5, 2026 — while the DOI was in the middle of its reconsideration process.
In many respects, Scotts Valley and the Yocha Dehe are very similar. Both are small California tribes seeking to preserve or expand their gambling revenue. Both employ high-powered lobbyists and make donations to politicians to advance their interests. But only the Yocha Dehe is aggressively greasing the wheels of the Trump machine — donating millions to Trump’s political operation and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a lobbyist who doubles as a top fundraiser for Trump. That approach has given the Yocha Dehe a decisive upper hand.
Nothing characterizes the otherwise incompetent Trump regime more than its ability to imply they welcome, solicit, demand and receive bribes with total impunity.
How can this open corruption continue day after day? Unchallenged by anyone but Judd! It’s obvious that pay to play happens every moment of every day yet here we are…this lone voice in the wilderness. Where is Fox News who pounded out the “The Biden Crime Family” “news” every day relentlessly. Yet real crime, this continued corruption, continues without even a whimper. Of course the DOJ and FBI will do nothing no matter how bad it gets but is there no other avenue to challenge and stop this?
GET OUT AND VOTE! Our only hope.