Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The non-profit group that helped pay for President Trump’s transition to the White House raised $6.5 million through mid-February, funded, in part, by corporate interests, lobbyists and some names tied to Trump's own Cabinet.

Corporations that gave the $5,000 maximum contribution to Trump for America Inc., included Citigroup; the private-prison firm GEO Group; EdisonLearning, a for-profit education services and charter school company; payday lender Advance America and Florida Crystals Corporation, a sugar producer.

Business trade groups and lobbyists also stepped in to aid the transition, ranging from the Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Petroleum Institute to Alfonse D’Amato, a former New York senator-turned-lobbyist.

Some of Trump’s ultra-wealthy advisers, Cabinet members and their relatives also contributed to the transition. Relatives of Trump Education Secretary Besty DeVos, a prominent Republican contributor, donated a total of $50,000.

Fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, who this month withdrew from consideration as Trump’s Labor Secretary, gave $5,000 to the transition in late November. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, tapped to serve as a special adviser to Trump on regulatory issues, also appeared on the donor list.

The list also included well-known Republican political benefactors, such as Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. He and his relatives donated a total of $15,000.

Adelson, who donated $20 million with his wife to a pro-Trump super PAC, has dined at the White House since Trump took the oath of office and this week will preside over the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting at his Las Vegas casino resort, The Venetian. Vice President Pence is slated to address the influential GOP group on Friday.

In all, Trump for America spent $4.66 million through Feb. 15, according to its report to the General Services Administration, the government agency that helps oversee presidential transitions.

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That’s far less than the $9.3 million in public and private funds that President Obama spent on transition work following his first election in 2008, according to data compiled by the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit group that tracks presidential transitions.

“This is, in relative terms, small dollars if you think about campaign operations that are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Max Stier, the Partnership’s CEO and president.

The bigger issue, he said, is the Trump administration has not kept pace with the Obama team in terms of adding critical personnel.

Of the 549 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, the Senate has confirmed 14 Trump appointees, another 20 await confirmation. A total of 515 still await nomination, according a tracker maintained by the Partnership and The Washington Post.