From the Free Beacon by Andrew Kerr:
The Black Lives Matter movement is once again facing legal scrutiny, with California attorney general Rob Bonta threatening to bring the hammer down on Black Lives Matter Grassroots if it doesn’t soon disclose what it did with millions of dollars in unreported charitable donations in 2022.
Bonta, a Democrat, notified Black Lives Matter Grassroots in late August that he would have no choice but to strip the group of its charity status, levy massive taxes upon the organization, and fine its leader, activist and professor Melina Abdullah, if it doesn’t file a copy of its 2022 Form 990 tax return with his office by Oct. 27.
But producing that tax form will likely be easier said than done for Black Lives Matter Grassroots. The group has had the privilege of operating as a tax-exempt charity since May 2022 but falsely claimed 2023 was its first year in business in its IRS tax return for that year. Several experts told the Washington Free Beacon it should have filed its 2022 tax return by last November at the latest. But it’s nowhere to be found. The group’s 2023 tax return, meanwhile, is laden with errors.
Also from the story:
“The multiple reporting errors and omissions in their initial 2023 IRS 990 report, particularly the lack of accounting for the source of approximately four million dollars, raises serious IRS violations subject to civil and even criminal charges against its president and its unnamed Board of Directors,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots (BLMG) is a breakaway faction of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF). The Foundation has been the target of complaints by NLPC with the Internal Revenue Service and state regulators alleging financial irregularities, including the purchase of mansions in Los Angeles and Toronto. BLMGNF founder Patrisse Cullors, a self-proclaimed Marxist, resigned from the group amid reports that she purchased four pieces of real estate.
Corporations and liberal foundations lavished more $80 million on BLMGNF in the wake of the 2020 rioting, with little or no accountability, touching off a grab for the money. BLMG filed a typo-ridden lawsuit against BLMGF for $10 million in 2022, but a judge dismissed it and ordered BLMG to pay BLMGNF’s legal fees.
One thing both groups have in common is a hostility to Israel and Jews. At a 2015 panel discussion at Harvard Law School, Cullors called for an “end the imperialist project that’s called Israel.” The Chicago chapter of BLMG tweeted “I Stand With Palestine” with an image of a paraglider, which were used by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks.
NLPC was early in reporting about BLM links to anti-Israel groups. In 2016, well before anyone heard of George Floyd, Carl Horowitz, then a member of the NLPC staff, wrote a website post titled “Black Lives Matter Activists Join Anti-Israel Boycott.”
