The question
When the Justice Department released the Epstein files, a question followed: where does the money of the men named in them go? In Michigan, for one fund, we can answer it for every dollar filed so far. The Great Lakes Conservatives Fund — GLCF, the super PAC that took over the fight from AIPAC’s own super PAC — is built to elect Republican Mike Rogers to the U.S. Senate. It is one of the most contentious Senate races in the country: AIPAC’s super PAC made the largest single-race intervention in its history in the race’s Democratic primary — the story PoliVion told in its Michigan case study and in The Michigan Connection — and the Democrat who lost that primary has since crossed over to endorse Rogers. In the 2026 cycle the fund has spent $34.2 million, all of it opposing Democrat Abdul El-Sayed or supporting Rogers. We took every significant donor in the fund’s FEC filings, both cycles, and checked each name against the released files — both cycles because 2024 is the last one fully documented, while much of 2026’s money will not be filed until after the election. Nine donors are in them. Together they gave $7,211,500 — $7,025,000 in the 2024 cycle and $186,500 in the 2026 cycle, for the same candidate in two different races. Two of the nine had documented contact with Epstein; the other seven are names in documents — a different thing, and this article keeps them different.
The nine donors, tallied from the fund’s own filings:
| Donor | Gave to GLCF | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| Stephen Schwarzman | $4,500,000 | 2024 |
| Thomas Peterffy | $1,500,000 | 2024 |
| Steve Wynn | $1,000,000 | 2024 |
| Robert Kraft | $100,000 | 2026 |
| John W. Childs | $55,000 | 2026 |
| Marc Rowan | $25,000 | 2026 |
| Fred Ehrsam | $25,000 | 2024 |
| Casey Wasserman | $5,000 | 2026 |
| John Catsimatidis | $1,500 | 2026 |
| Total | $7,211,500 | 2024: $7,025,000 · 2026: $186,500 |
Documented contact
Marc Rowan — $25,000 to the fund (2026 cycle). Rowan runs Apollo Global Management. His office’s correspondence with Epstein’s office covers at least five scheduled meetings, all after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, and in March 2016 Rowan shared internal Apollo material with Epstein — information Apollo’s own client letter concedes was provided in connection with Leon Black’s tax work (Reuters). By one news organization’s count, his name appears 389 times in the released files — more than any other donor to this fund. The deepest documented Epstein contact of any donor in this fund.
Casey Wasserman — $5,000 to the fund (2026 cycle). Wasserman, who chairs the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, corresponded directly with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 messages in the files — messages about real estate and massages — and says himself he flew on Epstein’s plane in 2002, on a Clinton Foundation humanitarian trip. He says he never had a personal or business relationship with Epstein himself.
Named in the files
Named is not accused: each man below appears in the released documents, no direct contact established.
Stephen Schwarzman — $4,500,000 (2024 cycle). The Blackstone CEO’s name appears 23 times in the files, including a 2010 email calling him “terrific.” No evidence the two ever corresponded or met; his spokesman calls any implied relationship “categorically false.” His is the largest files-named gift in either cycle, given in three checks: $2 million in June, $1 million in August and $1.5 million in September 2024.
Thomas Peterffy — $1,500,000 (2024 cycle). The Interactive Brokers founder is counted as named in a news cross-reference of the files, on Palm Beach real-estate grounds — the thinnest link in this set; no contact documented. He gave in two checks, $1 million on August 29 and $500,000 on October 3, 2024.
Steve Wynn — $1,000,000 (2024 cycle). Epstein discussed the casino magnate in his correspondence — a January 2019 exchange with Steve Bannon, and his 2018 “war council” list of Trump friends. No direct contact is shown. The “war council” was an August 2018 email in which Epstein proposed Wynn — then finance chairman of the Republican National Committee — for a council of Trump’s heavy-hitter friends to manage the Russia-investigation fallout; the suggestion was made to someone else, and no document shows Wynn knew of it or that the council ever met.
Robert Kraft — $100,000 (2026 cycle). No direct Kraft–Epstein communication exists in the files. What the files do hold is his open $1 million investment in Reporty, an Israeli security startup, recorded beside a second $1 million from Epstein in the same company that was concealed at the time. And on February 22, 2019 — the day Kraft was charged in a Florida spa case — Epstein wrote his own lawyer, Jack Goldberger: “yes im trying to have him hire you.” Kraft hired him six days later.
John W. Childs — $55,000 (2026 cycle). The private-equity founder’s name appears as “JOHN W CHILDS” in a Deutsche Bank client document preserved in the release (EFTA01406710); the files also preserve news coverage of the 2019 Jupiter sting. Charged alongside Kraft in that sting, he denied it; the charges were dropped.
Fred Ehrsam — $25,000 (2024 cycle). The Coinbase co-founder appears in the email chains around Epstein’s $3 million Coinbase investment — a 2014 purchase routed through a vehicle called IGO LLC and arranged by Brock Pierce. Ehrsam coordinated on the deal inside those chains and sought a meeting before accepting the money; no direct Ehrsam–Epstein message has surfaced, and whether the meeting happened is unconfirmed.
John Catsimatidis — $1,500 (2026 cycle). The grocery-and-oil billionaire is in Epstein’s address book — and the address-book entry is the whole of the documented link: no correspondence, meeting or flight accompanies it. His gift arrived September 30, 2026 — two weeks after he was publicly named as a files-named Rogers donor.
First mapped by the Metro Times
The Detroit Metro Times opened this territory in September: at least seven files-named donors across all of Rogers’ committees, nearly $4.7 million since 2023. Our scan of the fund’s complete filings confirms four of their seven gave to the fund itself, and adds four names their map lacked — Wynn, Peterffy, Ehrsam and Wasserman. Kraft’s late-disclosed check makes nine.
The cautions
Two findings cut the other way. Ken Griffin gave the fund $2,500,000 (2024 cycle). His name does appear in the released files — but only as a mention: in 2016 emails about a possible job at Citadel, his firm, Epstein discussed Griffin with others — and said of him: “I never met him.” Citadel says Griffin never met or communicated with Epstein. The claim that he appears in Epstein’s “black book” circulates on aggregator sites; nothing in the documents backs it. Griffin grades mentioned in the files — named here precisely because the line between a mention and a connection is the whole point of the grading. And the fund’s “Jon Harris” ($5,000) is not Josh Harris, the Apollo co-founder in the files — a different man, who gave nothing.
Our read
One of the biggest live fights in Congress is over the Epstein files themselves — whether the rest of them ever come out. The Epstein Files Transparency Act did not move the normal way: after months of blocking, a discharge petition forced it to the House floor, where it passed 427 to 1 and was signed into law on November 19, 2025. By the end of January, the Justice Department had published about 3.5 million pages — and Rep. Thomas Massie and congressional Democrats say more than three million files are still withheld. That fight is not finished.
Now look at Michigan. In one of the most contentious Senate races in the country, nine donors named in those very files have collectively put $7,211,500 into the Great Lakes Conservatives Fund — the one super PAC at the center of the race, spent opposing Abdul El-Sayed and supporting Mike Rogers. Every dollar of it went to elect one candidate — and his position on the files is on the record. On The Brian Kilmeade Show in July 2025, Rogers argued against releasing unredacted names from the flight records and ledgers: “I do believe you have to protect victims. You also have to protect somebody who got on an airplane and rode with him” — “the court of public opinion would ruin their life for no reason.” He opposed the “big, big, ugly vote on the House floor” — the vote that forced the release the fight above is still being waged over. Whether the rest comes out will be decided by the government elected this week: senators confirm the Justice Department’s leaders, fund it, and oversee it.
PoliVion does not claim to know why any of these men gave — only who gave, who they gave to, and what power that office holds over the files. On the face of the record, money from men named in the files — two with documented contact — is working to elect the candidate on record arguing that names in the files should stay sealed absent evidence of knowledge or participation. No motive has to be claimed for that to matter: it is in the filings, and in his own words.
Nine names, nine different checks — and one source behind all of them: the Epstein files, and the orbit they document.
How we graded this: We graded every donor in the fund’s filings. Documented contact: emails, meetings, investments or flights in the record. Named in the files: the name appears in the released documents, with no direct contact established. Mentioned in the files: the name surfaces only in third-party documents — discussed by others, never in contact, with nothing connecting the man to Epstein himself. No link found: nothing surfaced in the searches we ran. Aggregator sites were leads only; nothing here rests on one. Being named is not an accusation: no donor here is accused of Epstein’s crimes, and some links above are the paper proximity — an address book, a forwarded clipping — that powerful names accumulate.
Sources: FEC filings, GLCF INC (C00853861), all periodic reports, 2024 and 2026 cycles (Schedule A and Schedule E records; totals through the Oct 14, 2026 close of books); Justice Department Epstein Library, justice.gov/epstein; Epstein’s Watchlist, epsteinwatchlist.com; Reuters, Feb 19, 2026 (Rowan–Epstein correspondence and Apollo client letter); Detroit Metro Times, “Donors named in Epstein files gave nearly $4.7 million to Mike Rogers and groups backing him,” Sept 14, 2026; The Gander, Sept 2026; Front Office Sports, “All the Sports Figures in the Latest Epstein Emails,” Jan 31, 2026, and “Michigan Senate Race: At Least 10 Sports Owners Backed Mike Rogers,” Nov 2, 2026; Boston Globe (via Boston.com), Feb 4, 2026; Forbes, February 2026; Mike Rogers interview, The Brian Kilmeade Show, July 2025 (audio clips released by the Michigan Democratic Party, Oct 2026); U.S. House roll call, Epstein Files Transparency Act (427–1), Nov 18, 2025; Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic statements on files still withheld, 2026.
The Michigan money, in full
The Great Lakes Conservatives Fund has spent $34.2 million on this one race and reported no spending on any other candidate, in any state. The race page tracks the contest the money is trying to decide on Tuesday.
The Michigan Senate race → The Michigan case study → ← Back to the dashboard