Trump attends secretive Silicon Valley fundraiser marred by protests

LOS ANGELES — President Trump on Tuesday attended a closely guarded fundraiser in Silicon Valley, his first visit to the liberal enclave since he took office.

The fundraiser took place at a private residence in Portola Valley, Calif., in a swanky home atop a hill where attendees were out of sight from the press and members of the public.

{mosads}”The President participated in a roundtable [with] approximately 25 supporters, then moved to a larger area and spoke to a couple of hundred supporters about the many accomplishments of his Administration,” press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement after the event.

Limited information was made public about the host location in advance, but a dozens of protesters who caught wind of the event lined the road leading to the residence to greet the president’s motorcade.

They set up large “Trump Chicken” and “Trump Baby” balloons and carried signs that read “resist” and that decried Trump as corrupt.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the host of the event, which was expected to bring in $3 million for the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee, was Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy.

The news outlet reported that the exact location of the event was not disclosed in advance in an effort to avoid mass protests.

Trump has avoided Northern California thus far during his presidency. The area voted overwhelmingly for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and the president has been openly feuding with Silicon Valley tech companies for much of his time in office.

The president was last in the Bay Area during the 2016 campaign, a visit that was met with widespread protests that turned violent.

Trump regularly alleges Google, Facebook and Twitter are biased against conservatives and has threatened to look into whether the companies are improperly censoring certain people. The companies have insisted that politics does not play a role in the enforcement of their policies.

Several high-profile tech industry leaders have donated to Democratic candidates already this year. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has donated to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt has donated to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D).