Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) has filed its long-awaited tax return for 2020, when it says it raised $90 million.
The big question was what happened to the $60 million it says it had at the end of 2020. It looks like they have done nothing with much of it. The Marxist group reported that it used $32 million to buy stocks, and ended the tax period with $42 million in assets.
The 990 confirmed that the group spent $6 million for a Los Angeles mansion.
Despite all this money, BLMGNF lists no executive director or staff, a fact that is sure to attract the scrutiny of watchdogs and charitable regulators.
The tax return confirms previous reports by Andrew Kerr in the Washington Examiner. For instance, BLMGNF paid $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company founded by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ child. Also, $840,000 was paid to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm run by Cullors’ brother, Paul Cullors. From yesterday’s Washington Examiner:
…the revelation that Patrisse Cullors’s brother identified as one of BLM’s two highest-compensated employees raises concerns that she may have used the charity, which claimed to have received $90 million in 2020, to subsidize her personal security costs, said Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group.
“Reportedly accessed Signal messaging exchanges show Paul Cullors supervises physical security at all of Patrisse’s private residences. That, coupled with this new revelation that Paul is one of the highest-paid employees of Black Lives Matter Global Network, is more proof Patrisse may have crossed the line on self-dealing,” Anderson told the Washington Examiner.
BLM’s ability to delay filing its 2020 tax return until now was made possible by an accounting maneuver — switching from a calendar year to a fiscal year — engineered by Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias. The role of Elias, and another Clinton ally, Minyon Moore, who was identified as a board member, led to speculation that Clinton operatives had seized control of the group. But Elias name is absent from the group’s most recent filings.
From today’s Washington Examiner article by Kerr titled, “BLM doled out millions to Patrisse Cullors’s family and friends, IRS filing shows:”
“This 990 shows why Cullors could no longer lead Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation,” Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. “I’m sure people who donated, in some cases their rent money, to BLM didn’t expect millions of dollars going to family members and close associates of Patrisse Cullors while thousands of protests were taking place.”
NLPC has been at the forefront of of investigating BLM’s questionable finances, including filing formal Complaints with the IRS and state officials.
