Fraudulent charity funnels over $1 million to Whitaker

[billvon 3,131]

No surprise that Matthew Whitaker, Trump's choice for Attorney General, is involved in a criminal enterprise.

History - back in 2014 conservatives were having problems. People were getting sick of their endless, dishonest attacks on Clinton and Obama. It got to the point where people would hear "Ted Cruz says . . ." and immediately tune out the latest Obama smear. They needed a new strategy.

One way would be to use a PAC to groom and promote spokespeople to attack Obama and Pelosi. They'd get prominent conservative politicians to fund them and hire spokespeople. But since PACs are required to report on their income, they faced the same problem, because then any reporting on them would include "Spokesman for conservative organization WeHateObama says . . ." and again get tuned out. (America Rising was one such organization, which later contributed heavily to the Whitaker scam.)

So they hit upon a clever scam. They would create a charity, then change its name a few times so the IRS had more trouble tracking their income. (Important, because the IRS gets annoyed at fake charities set up to dodge taxes.) Then they'd get the same conservatives to contribute to the charity. No taxes - and more importantly no reporting requirements. They could claim they were just concerned citizens speaking for a completely unbiased nonprofit organization, unconnected to Republicans.

That "charity" finally ended up, after a few name changes, as the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT.) That ironically named charity then served as a "funnel" to channel money - tax free and anonymously - from conservative groups to their spokesperson.

Who was that spokesperson? Matthew Whitaker. For several years he was not only the spokesperson, but the only employee and the only beneficiary of FACT. Overall the organization funnelled more than $1.2 million to Whitaker, tax free and without accountability.

Unfortunately for him, people found out about the scam, and they started checking. They started with the original nonprofit - the "Free Market American Educational Foundation." This one WAS filed legally with the IRS. The filing documents for FMAEF showed several founders and directors. So reporters contacted them.

James Crumley, director - could not remember anything about the organization or whether he was a director. "I can only speculate since I don't even remember this group existing," he said in an interview.

Noah Wall, director - he said he never agreed to be a director. "I never signed anything . . . I'm not sure what any of this is."

They then changed their name at least twice to hide their activities from the IRS. They then "moved" to a fake address in DC, a location that was just a mail drop.

Meanwhile, FACT has claimed it never changed its name. Documents filed for the old charity showed only payments to Whitaker ($63,000 for three months of part time work) and $600K in donations. Whitaker's work for them was exclusively attacking democrats and promoting republicans. IRS rules prohibit nonprofits from participating in political campaigns or working for or against candidates for office.

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

And here's an ironic twist. FACT's mission statement says its mission was "to educate the public about unethical conduct on the part of public officials." FACT may end up doing just that - by highlighting Whitaker's unethical conduct and tax fraud.

[BIGUN 1,500]

Quote

Matthew Whitaker, Trump's choice for Attorney General

Not choice so much as a normal course for the "Under" to move up as "Acting" in a succession plan until the formal process takes place.

Quote

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

This is the true definition of a "shit-show." Makes one wonder a) how asleep at the wheel was Sessions, and 2) Is Trump really unjustified in his "firing" policy. Makes me wonder what he finds out behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

Quote

Not choice so much as a normal course for the "Under" to move up as "Acting" in a succession plan until the formal process takes place.

If this is normal than this must have happened quite frequently right? When was the last time an AG without senate confirmation was in place? Acting or otherwise.

[jakee 1,608]

BIGUN

Quote

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

This is the true definition of a "shit-show." Makes one wonder a) how asleep at the wheel was Sessions, and 2) Is Trump really unjustified in his "firing" policy. Makes me wonder what he finds out behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Hang on - you're saying that Trump found out that a criminal was working as Sessions' CoS and was so concerned about it that he fired Sessions and promoted the criminal?

Look, I know that you're by no means a pure partisan, but sometimes you do let your political bias tie you in knots...

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[ryoder 1,590]

BIGUN

Quote

Matthew Whitaker, Trump's choice for Attorney General

Not choice so much as a normal course for the "Under" to move up as "Acting" in a succession plan until the formal process takes place.

If that was the case, then Rod Rosenstein should be the current acting AG.
Trump made a choice to ignore the line of succession.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General#Line_of_succession

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[BIGUN 1,500]

SkyDekker

Quote

Not choice so much as a normal course for the "Under" to move up as "Acting" in a succession plan until the formal process takes place.

If this is normal than this must have happened quite frequently right? When was the last time an AG without senate confirmation was in place? Acting or otherwise.

Ummmm. Mark Filip was "Acting" until his senate confirmation.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[BIGUN 1,500]

jakee

***

Quote

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

This is the true definition of a "shit-show." Makes one wonder a) how asleep at the wheel was Sessions, and 2) Is Trump really unjustified in his "firing" policy. Makes me wonder what he finds out behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Hang on - you're saying that Trump found out that a criminal was working as Sessions' CoS and was so concerned about it that he fired Sessions and promoted the criminal?



No. Not at all. Feel free to re-read my post.

Quote

Look, I know that you're by no means a pure partisan, but sometimes you do let your political bias tie you in knots...

Thank you for the compliment. And, in some cases - that's a true statement.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[billvon 3,131]

>Mark Filip was "Acting" until his senate confirmation.

Filip was confirmed by the Senate on March 3, 2008 and sworn in as deputy AG on March 10, 2008. He then became acting AG. In fact, this was done so that Eric Holder could wait for confirmation by the Senate before he became Attorney General.

Whitaker was never confirmed.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

BIGUN

***

Quote

Not choice so much as a normal course for the "Under" to move up as "Acting" in a succession plan until the formal process takes place.

If this is normal than this must have happened quite frequently right? When was the last time an AG without senate confirmation was in place? Acting or otherwise.

Ummmm. Mark Filip was "Acting" until his senate confirmation.


Ummm, Mark Filip was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on March 3, 2008 to be Deputy AG. He became Acting AG after that.

Want to keep digging?

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

BIGUN

******

Quote

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

This is the true definition of a "shit-show." Makes one wonder a) how asleep at the wheel was Sessions, and 2) Is Trump really unjustified in his "firing" policy. Makes me wonder what he finds out behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Hang on - you're saying that Trump found out that a criminal was working as Sessions' CoS and was so concerned about it that he fired Sessions and promoted the criminal?



No. Not at all. Feel free to re-read my post.

So what are you saying?

I see as you seeming to say that Trump fired Sessions (at least in part) because his Chief of Staff was a crook.
Yet Trump promoted that same crook to Acting AG.

I will agree that the entire White House is a complete shit show.

However, I doubt Trump finds out stuff 'behind the scenes' that we don't know about.

That would imply that:

A - The anonymous sources coming out of the White House missed it.

B - Trump actually has a clue of what's going on.

I think B is less likely than A.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[jakee 1,608]

BIGUN

******

Quote

So now we have a criminal working as the Attorney General, one who scammed $1.2 million in pay through a fraudulent charity.

This is the true definition of a "shit-show." Makes one wonder a) how asleep at the wheel was Sessions, and 2) Is Trump really unjustified in his "firing" policy. Makes me wonder what he finds out behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Hang on - you're saying that Trump found out that a criminal was working as Sessions' CoS and was so concerned about it that he fired Sessions and promoted the criminal?



No. Not at all. Feel free to re-read my post.

I re-read it, and it still sounds like that's what you said. Feel free to clarify your statement if you want to be understood.

Again, if it reflects so badly on Sessions that Whitaker was simply working in the State Department, why does it reflect well on Trump that he decided to promote him to acting AG? Something which, as pointed out above, you were wrong about being the normal process.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?