Power Grab - Jason Chaffetz Page 0,11

a well-known tax haven. An investigation by the Washington Free Beacon uncovered tax forms showing transfers to Cayman Islands bank accounts and foreign partnerships totaling millions of dollars.

With its vaunted history of winning lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation, the organization attracts idealists. But the firing of cofounder Morris Dees in early 2019 amid allegations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism exposed the internal contradictions of an organization infected with the very intolerance it is paid to fight.

SPLC bills itself as “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.” In reality, former SPLC employee and writer Bob Moser said, it was hard for employees not to “feel like we’d become pawns in what was, in many respects, a highly profitable scam.”

The posh Alabama headquarters (snarkily referred to by employees as “the Poverty Palace”) is focused on fund-raising programs, not civil rights lawsuits. Karl Zinmeister of Philanthropy Roundtable reports that SPLC has never spent more than 31 percent of its donations on fighting hate and intolerance. In some years, he reports, that number has dropped to as little as 18 percent, far less than the fund-raising budget.

Its two largest expenses are propaganda operations: creating its annual lists of “haters” and “extremists,” and running a big effort that pushes “tolerance education” through more than 400,000 public-school teachers. And the single biggest effort undertaken by the SPLC? Fundraising. On the organization’s 2015 IRS 990 form it declared $10 million of direct fundraising expenses, far more than it has ever spent on legal services.

The bad publicity following the firing of Morris Dees resulted in the resignation of SPLC president Richard Cohen as the group faces perhaps the worst public relations disaster in its history. To help navigate the problem, the Daily Wire reports they’ve hired the former chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, Tina Tchen. She will lead an internal investigation into alleged racial and gender bias.

You may have heard of Tchen. She played a role in getting hate crime charges against actor Jussie Smollett dropped. A grand jury had indicted the actor from the television series Empire with sixteen counts of disorderly conduct after police found evidence he had falsely reported a hate crime. The actor had alleged an attack in January 2019 in which he claimed he was assaulted by two men who put a noose around his neck, doused him in chemicals, and said, “This is MAGA country.” The allegations described precisely the type of crime that fills SPLC coffers with donations from angry progressives.

In a text message to Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx, Tchen wrote, “I wanted to give you a call on behalf of Jussie Smollett and family who I know. They have concerns about the investigation.” Foxx emailed back saying, “Spoke to the Superintendent [Eddie] Johnson” and “convinced him to reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation.” Presumably Tchen’s intervention helped Foxx connect with a member of Smollett’s family. In subsequent texts between that family member and Foxx, Foxx reassured the family member, writing, “Spoke to the superintendent earlier, he made the ask. Trying to figure out logistics. I’ll keep you posted.” To which Smollett’s undisclosed relative replied, “Omg this would be a huge victory.” Foxx responded that she would “make no guarantees, but I’m trying.”

Just one month after his arrest, the charges against Smollett for faking a hate crime were mysteriously dropped. There would be no prosecution. The case was closed. The record was sealed. Smollett did not even have to take responsibility for a hate crime hoax that targeted Trump supporters and undermined the credibility of other hate crimes going forward.

You know which nonprofit should be really upset about this? That’s right. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Instead, they decided Tina Tchen was the person they should rely on to get to the bottom of their own racism and bigotry. Obviously, they are very serious about that. The extent to which these nonprofit charities are tied together with progressive politics and politicians is laid bare.

Though SPLC is an extreme example of a nonprofit that has completely subjugated its charitable mission to the demands of its political and fund-raising work, we’ll see in the next chapter that SPLC is not alone in weaponizing its charitable work for political purposes.

Following the Rules

To understand how nonprofits can be weaponized, you first have to understand a few key facts about the framework of rules that govern them.