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).

Maryland AG Asked to Investigate Cummings’ Nonprofit

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From the Washington Examiner, by Alana Goodman:

A watchdog group is asking the Maryland attorney general to investigate whether Rep. Elijah Cummings and his wife used a charity for improper self-enrichment, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, which leans conservative, filed the complaint on Monday against the Center for Global Policy Solutions, a nonprofit organization founded by Cummings’ wife, Maya Rockeymoore.

The complaint asked Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh to investigate the financial relationship between the Center for Global Policy Solutions and Rockeymoore’s for-profit consulting firm, Global Policy Solutions LLC.

The similarly named entities shared an address, phone number, projects, funding sources, and had a cost-sharing arrangement that raises questions about a “potentially improper financial benefit to Ms. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and her husband, Representative Elijah Cummings,” the complaint asserts.

Click here to read the rest … Read More ➡

Court Dismisses Frivolous ‘Emoluments’ Suit Against Trump

Posted on by Carl Horowitz

Donald Trump’s enemies have gotten creative lately in examining his past for evidence of lawbreaking. But their creativity has its limits. In Richmond, Va. this morning, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit unanimously dismissed a lawsuit filed two years ago by the attorneys general for Maryland and the District of Columbia accusing Trump of illegally profiting from his continuing financial interest in the Trump International Hotel, located blocks from the White House. The suit alleged that he violated the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause barring presidents and other federal officials from accepting gifts or money from foreign and domestic government officials without congressional approval. The claims, wrote Judge Paul Niemeyer, were too “attenuated” and “abstract” to merit legal standing.

The Emoluments Clause (actually three separate clauses) of the U.S. Constitution is one of our primary safeguards against political corruption. The most relevant portion here, … Read More ➡

Senator Hassan Has Not Notified Victims of Data Theft

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From the Daily Caller by Luke Rosiak, including comment by NLPC’s Tom Anderson:

Sen. Maggie Hassan’s computer system was hacked in what prosecutors called the “largest data theft in Senate history,” yet there is no evidence she informed constituents who may be at risk of identity theft as a result — despite being one of the most vocal advocates for laws requiring hacking victims to do just that.

The New Hampshire Democrat’s former IT aide Jackson Cosko was sentenced to four years in prison June 19 for pilfering essentially all the office’s data by paying another Hassan staffer to help him break into the office late at night. One of Hassan’s key issues in the Senate has been requiring companies to notify Americans whose personal information they fail to protect. Hassan sponsored a federal law to that end, but it has not passed.

A 2006 New Hampshire law enacted while … Read More ➡

Federal Employees Union Tries to Block Migrant Deportations

Posted on by Carl Horowitz

It takes no great insight to recognize there is a rapidly worsening security crisis along our southern border. Remarkably, a union representing federal employees handling this crisis is enabling it. Last Wednesday, American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924 filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco in support of a lawsuit to block enforcement of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Since its launch in January, the program has returned about 13,000 asylum seekers and refugees to Mexico. MPP, reads the complaint, is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.” Such high-minded rhetoric, among other things, ignores the fact that these migrants entered the U.S. illegally, often with the intent to exploit our system of public benefits.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the many photos of “caravans” of thousands of Hispanics, especially Central … Read More ➡

Rep. Elijah Cummings Drums Up Business for His Wife

Posted on by NLPC Staff

From the Daily Wire by Ryan Saavreda:

Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is facing accusations that he is using his position in Congress to financially benefit his wife, whose charity may have gained “illegal private benefit” from his committee activities.

Cummings’ wife, Maya Rockeymoore, is the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and she “runs two entities, a nonprofit group called the Center for Global Policy Solutions and a for-profit consulting firm called Global Policy Solutions, LLC, whose operations appear to have overlapped, according to the IRS complaint filed by watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center,” The Washington Examiner reported, adding that Rockeymoore’s charity “received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband’s committee and could have been used illegally.”

One of Global Policy Solutions’ clients is AARP, which testified before Cummings’ committee earlier this year … Read More ➡

IRS Complaint: Cummings Wife Paid Twice For Same Work

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

Today, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) filed an amendment to its May 20 Complaint to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, and the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) group that she heads. Cummings is the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The amendment is prompted by a news story on June 5, 2019 in the Daily Caller by Andrew Kerr titled “Elijah Cummings’s Wife Used Her Charity to Pay For-Profit Company, Documents Show.”

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is also the only principal in Global Policy Solutions, LLC (GPS, LLC), a for-profit limited liability corporation that NLPC alleged in its May 20 Complaint to be “impermissibly entwined” with the nonprofit CGPS.

According to CGPS financial statements for 2014 and 2015 cited in the Daily Caller article, GPS, LLC received a fee of 5% … Read More ➡

Federal Election Commission is Investigating Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From the Washington Examiner by Alana Goodman:

The Federal Election Commission is examining financial discrepancies at a political action committee that was run by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after an outside watchdog group raised questions about the group’s spending activities.

Justice Democrats PAC, a committee where Ocasio-Cortez served on the board until last summer, said in financial reports that it helped pay off candidate debts that did not appear to exist, according to a May 30 letter from the FEC cited by the Washington Free Beacon.

The FEC asked the PAC to explain the discrepancies, request refunds from the campaigns that allegedly received the payments, and update its financial statements, noting that the commission “may take further legal action regarding this impermissible activity.”

Justice Democrat PAC’s financial report for April 1, 2018, to June 30, 2018, “discloses one or more contributions to federal candidates for the retirement of debts incurred … Read More ➡

Nonprofit Documents Confirm Self-Dealing by Rep. Cummings Wife

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From the Daily Caller by Andrew Kerr:

House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings’s wife has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars from her charity to her private for-profit organization, according to a previously undisclosed cost-sharing arrangement that multiple experts said raises red flags.

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity, the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), paid her for-profit venture, Global Policy Solutions LLC, over $250,000 in “management fees” between 2013 and 2015, according to the charity’s audited financial statements covering those years. The management fees were paid in addition to a cost-sharing agreement where the charity pays for its share of equipment, personnel and other expenditures.

Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity is funded by companies with interests before her husband’s congressional committee, according to the Washington Examiner.

“It’s self-dealing. It’s taking the charity’s resources and turning them into personal profits,” National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) investigator Tom Anderson told The Daily … Read More ➡

Rep. Cummings Wife Still Illegally Withholding Nonprofit Tax Return

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

Elijah Maya CummingsFrom the Daily Caller by Luke Rosiak:

Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings’ wife is breaking the law by not revealing financial disclosures about her nonprofit, an uninvolved legal expert told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings runs a nonprofit called the Center for Global Policy Solutions that is closely intertwined with a for-profit consulting firm, Global Policy Solutions LLC. The nonprofit has received millions of dollars from groups with interests before the congressman’s committee, potentially buying them favorable treatment, according to a complaint filed with the IRS by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC).

At least three different groups have requested the forms, and to each, Rockeymoore Cummings has refused, even when told that the law requires it. She refused on the phone to NLPC, and did not answer formal requests to view the forms from the Washington Examiner and TheDCNF.

“Wow. That’s illegal,” Sally Wagenmaker, … Read More ➡