Thiel has contributed the maximum-allowed, $5,800 check to Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed attorney running against Cheney in next year’s Republican primary. The former president has made Cheney, an outspoken critic who voted for his impeachment in January, his top target in the 2022 election, and now big-money benefactors like Thiel are piling into the race.

The list of major Trump donors included on Hageman’s third-quarter fundraising report, which is set to be publicly released Friday, also includes Wyoming transportation executive Timothy Mellon, who was the single biggest giver to the principal pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, during the 2020 election. Dallas real estate executive James Mabrey, Apple associate general counsel Douglas Vetter and Florida medical company executive Peter Lamelas also gave to Hageman. Other big names include Lynette Friess, the widow of Republican mega-donor and prominent Trump backer Foster Friess…

While Cheney’s totals and hefty lead — she raised $1.7 million in the third quarter alone — show that she still has powerful connections in a fast-changing Republican Party, the list of prominent Trump donors throwing in with Hageman highlights his dominant influence in the GOP. And it demonstrates Trump and his allies are mobilizing together to punish the handful of Republicans who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.