Government Integrity Project

NLPC “blows the whistle” on government officials and interest groups engaged in questionable activities. NLPC has filed formal Complaints with a variety of authorities and regulators, including the Federal Election Commission, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Congressional Ethics Committees.

NLPC supports government integrity in two additional ways: by promoting the First Amendment as the basis for campaign finance reform, and by promoting use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Granholm Set to Cash In After Biden Tour of Electric Bus Maker

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Who says you can’t get rich as a public servant?

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm promised during her confirmation process that she would divest her stock ownership in the electric bus and battery maker Proterra, Inc.

Granholm hasn’t abided by her agreement to divest yet President Biden recently gave a promotional virtual tour of Proterra’s facilities opening the door to Granholm making a windfall when Proterra goes public in a matter of weeks.

Senator John Barrasso is asking the Energy Department Inspector General to investigate the potentially lucrative arrangement for Granholm. 

Secretary Granholm submitted a U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (Committee) Statement for Completion by Presidential Nominees (Committee Questionnaire), which she signed on January 21, 2021. She responded “Yes” to the following question: “Have you taken appropriate action to avoid any conflict of interest or any appearance of a conflict interest?”

She responded “Yes” … Read More ➡

Tech Billionaires Bankroll Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors as She Lobbies for ‘Net Neutrality’

Posted on by NLPC Staff
Jack Dorsey/PHOTO: jdlasica (CC)

Isabel Vincent has this today in the New York Post:

Big Tech has showered Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ PAC and charities with millions in donations — and censors her online critics — as she backs their battle to control the internet.

Philanthropists linked to Facebook, Twitter and Netflix have donated more than $7.5 million to a host of non-profits controlled by Khan-Cullors, who has helped them lobby for “net neutrality.”

From the article:

“Is Black Lives Matter for rent?” said Peter Flaherty, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center. “Charities are not supposed to be vehicles for corporate lobbying, particularly on matters outside the charity’s mission.”

Click here to read the whole story in the New York Post.

… Read More ➡

BLM Co-Founder’s Nonprofit Seeks to Operate in Other States as it Avoids Financial Disclosure in California

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Joe Schoffstall writes on FoxNews.com:

Patrisse Cullors

A social justice nonprofit chaired by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors is moving to operate in other states as it avoids filing required financial documents in California, filings show.

Cullors’ nonprofit, Dignity and Power Now, was warned by California’s attorney general’s office in March over its failure to file all the required financial documents for 2019. According to state records, Dignity and Power Now is currently delinquent in California, where it is incorporated.

From the same article:

“As a condition of their tax-exempt status, nonprofit groups are required by the IRS and state regulators to disclose significant information about their finances,” said Peter Flaherty, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center. “It is important for groups soliciting donations to file accurately and on time.”

Also:

“When a nonprofit that engages in advocacy is supported by a small number of wealthy individuals … Read More ➡

California AG Says Group Chaired by Black Lives Matter Founder Patrisse Cullors Hasn’t Made Required Disclosures

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Fred Lucas in the Daily Signal has this:

Patrisse Cullors

California officials have issued three warnings to a nonprofit group started by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors that it has failed to file required financial disclosures.

In September and again in February and March, the California Attorney General’s Office notified Cullors’ organization, Dignity and Power Now, that it was delinquent in filing the financial information, according to documents obtained by The Daily Signal. 

From the same article:

The California Attorney General’s Office gave The Daily Signal a copy of the March letter. The National Legal and Policy Center provided the previous letters, one dated Sept. 4 and the other Feb. 2, to The Daily Signal. 

Also:

The Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks nonprofits, monitors the finances of nonprofit groups associated with Cullors. NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty said it is important to know where … Read More ➡

Grassley Pursues Possible Links Between Veterans Administration and Short Sellers

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has written to the heads of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking information on allegations that a senior VA official named Charmain Bogue may have disclosed inside information useful to Wall Street short sellers.

Senator Charles Grassley

Ms. Bogue is married to Barrett Bogue who works for an outside group called Veterans Educational Success (VES), a critic of for-profit colleges. On March 9, the VA issued a press release announcing its intent “to suspend enrollment of new GI Bill students” in certain for-profit schools.

VES beat the VA to the punch on the news, which tanked the stocks of several for-profit education companies. VES issued a press release earlier in the day praising the VA decision before it was actually announced. The VA ultimately backed off its threat to bar certain schools, but the question persists of just … Read More ➡

How Hunter Biden’s Interests ‘Overlapped’ With Banned Ukrainian Oligarch

Posted on by NLPC Staff

This story by Fred Lucas appears today in The Daily Signal:

The Ukrainian oligarch whom the Biden administration banned from the United States this month previously had overlapping financial interests with President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, according to government documents and earlier news reports. 

Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian billionaire known for hardball actions against competing companies, is a former government official in Ukraine and also used to be an owner of one of that nation’s largest financial institutions, PrivatBank.  

Last year, under the Trump administration, as the Justice Department investigated Kolomoisky’s U.S. assets, the FBI raided Optima Management Group, a U.S. real estate company that Kolomoisky has a stake in.

The Biden administration has cranked matters up, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing March 6 that the U.S. would freeze Kolomoisky’s U.S. assets and ban him from reentering the country. 

In a separate probe, the U.S. … Read More ➡

AG Merrick Garland Must Support Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Bomber

Posted on by NLPC Staff

The Supreme Court of the United States announced Monday that it decided to hear whether Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty of the terrorist attack in 2013 that killed three people and injured approximately 280 others, is entitled to a new death penalty phase trial because of pretrial publicity and other concerns as ordered by a lower court of appeals.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) called upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to reject those baseless arguments and to support former Attorney General Bill Barr’s position opposing a “new and more onerous penalty trial where [Tsarnaev’s] victims would relive their trauma.” See above interview with NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar on One America News Network.

During his confirmation hearing last month, Garland was praised by his supporters for his prosecution of Timothy McVeigh who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and who received the … Read More ➡

Teacher Unions Continue to Thwart School Re-Openings, Demand Money

Posted on by Carl Horowitz

In the ongoing effort to isolate people from the COVID-19 virus, students arguably have suffered the greatest consequences. Teacher unions have had much to do with this situation. Across the nation, especially in and around cities, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have been aggressively resisting back-to-work orders. To the extent that schools are reopening, taxpayers are paying a premium. Tucked away in the new $1.9 trillion “stimulus” bill passed by Congress on March 10 and signed the next day by President Biden, the third such legislation in a little under a year, is more than $125 billion for reopening K-12 schools and colleges to full capacity. In light of a recent sharp drop in new cases, not to mention the relative immunity among youth, these subsidies more than anything else seem to be reciprocation for union political donations.  

COVID-19, or coronavirus, originated in mainland … Read More ➡

NASDAQ ‘Diversity’ Rule Delayed as Gensler SEC Confirmation Advances

Posted on by NLPC Staff
Gensler took part in confirmation hearing without leaving his house.

Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was postponing final approval of Nasdaq’s controversial Board “Diversity” rule for at least three more weeks, which coincides with the Senate Banking Committee’s approval yesterday of Biden’s SEC Chairman pick, Gary Gensler, who was described by the Washington Post as a “progressive darling.” 

Senator Patrick Toomey questioned whether Gensler “will also push the legal bounds of the SEC’s authority, in particular in an attempt to advance a liberal social agenda.” His nomination will go to the full Senate soon for final approval.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) condemned the SEC and Nasdaq for proposing the rule last December that would require all Nasdaq listed companies to have at least two self-identified “Diverse” persons, including self-identified women, Black, Latinix (a woke term for “Latino” that most Latinos don’t use), … Read More ➡

Merrick Garland’s Double Standard on Political Violence

Posted on by NLPC Staff

2/23/21- Paul Kamenar, Counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, is interviewed on One America News Network by Richard Pollock on Merrick Garland’s nomination to be Attorney General. Garland dismissed a misconduct complaint against a magistrate judge who improperly dismissed an indictment against a co-conspirator and fugitive Elizabeth Ann Duke for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Capitol and other federal buildings.… Read More ➡