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).

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 the federal employees who handle 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 by the end of June had temporarily returned to Mexico more than 15,000 asylum seekers who had been detained at U.S. ports of entry. MPP, reads the complaint, is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.” Such high-minded rhetoric ignores the fact that these migrants attempted to enter the U.S. illegally.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the many photos of “caravans” of thousands … 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 ➡

IRS Complaint Filed Against Wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) today filed a Complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), a 501(c)(3) organization headed by Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, wife to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD).

Mrs. Cummings is currently Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and is a former candidate for Governor. Rep. Cummings is Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The Complaint describes a score of apparent Internal Revenue Code violations, including prohibited private benefit and inurement of the Cummings. CGPS has received millions in grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and, in late 2017, was granted a million-dollar contract from the General Services Administration. The funds were purportedly provided to fight childhood obesity. The Complaint asks the IRS to investigate whether “its organizers are getting fat off the grants.”

At the same time she heads CGPS, Mrs. Cummings heads a for-profit … Read More ➡

Bureau of Prisons Asked to Investigate D.C.’s Scandal-Plagued Hope Village

Posted on by NLPC Staff

NLPC sent the following letter today to Hugh J. Hurwitz, Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP):

We write to express serious concerns about the procurement process for a federally funded halfway house — or reentry center — in Washington D.C. Based on a review of news reports about the lone, federally contracted halfway house operator in the city, along with other publicly available information suggesting the process may be tainted by political interference, we urge the Bureau of Prisons to conduct a thorough review of this matter.

Hope Village’s decades-long contractual arrangement with the federal government is troubling – not to mention puzzling – given the litany of problems widely associated with the halfway home operator. Often referred to as “Hopeless Village” by local community members and returning citizens who have stayed there, the Southeast Washington halfway house has a long history of substandard care and a … Read More ➡