Andrew Kerr reports in the Free Beacon:
The lavish Atlanta home where Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) resides brims with luxury details: Marketed as a “one of one custom home that effortlessly merges history & luxury,” the five-bedroom home, built in 2022, went on the market for over a million dollars later that year and sold quickly—not to Warnock, but to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he still serves as part-time senior pastor when he’s not representing the state of Georgia in Congress.
From the story:
Warnock, who quietly moved into the home in 2023, now lives there rent-free, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Georgia state records show that Warnock listed the home as his primary residence when he registered to vote in November 2023, and real estate records indicate the property is owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church, which, according to public records, snapped it up for $989,000 in October 2022.
The new home may represent an upgrade for Warnock from an already-generous arrangement with Ebenezer, whereby he was provided a $7,417 per month housing allowance, tax free. But is any of this improper or illegal? Also from the article:
Warnock’s 2023 financial disclosure makes no indication of his living arrangement, but ethics expert Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group said the arrangement probably does not violate Senate ethics rules, which allow lawmakers to receive “lodging and other benefits” from outside employers in certain circumstances. In Warnock’s case, Hedtler-Gaudette said, he’s likely in the clear because Ebenezer Baptist Church has a long history of providing housing benefits for its pastors.
A lawyer for the watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, Paul Kamenar, also said that Warnock’s housing arrangement is likely in line with the Senate’s lax ethics rules but noted that the IRS could view the benefit as excessive, considering Warnock works for the church in a part-time capacity.
This is not the first time Warnock’s real estate machinations may have involved IRS violations. In 2022, NLPC filed a formal Complaint with the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division alleging that Ebenezer, through a series of related-party transactions, sought to hide or obscure its 99% ownership of an apartment building that has come under scrutiny for its aggressive eviction tactics against poor tenants owing small sums, as low as $28.00, or who are behind in their rent by only days, as first reported by Kerr.
“It’s obscene that Senator Warnock’s church allows him to live rent-free in a new million-dollar house while it evicts poor black residents from its apartment building for being late in paying back rent for as little as $28,” Kamenar said. “Moreover, this benefit and his pay for being a part-time pastor may be an excessive benefit under IRS rules and trigger tax penalties.”
