Exclusive: Tom Cotton Pushes IRS to Investigate Southern Poverty Law Center’s Tax-Exempt Status

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is pressing the IRS to investigate the tax-exempt status of leftist group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that has been mired in scandal. Cotton argues that a series of recent reports regarding the leftist group’s patently political activities are troubling, and in a letter to the head of the IRS provided to Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release questions whether these actions warrant removal of the group’s status as a nonprofit organization.

“I am writing to urge you to investigate whether the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) should retain its classification as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization,” Cotton wrote in the Tuesday letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. “Recent news reports have confirmed the long-established fact that the SPLC regularly engages in defamation of its political opponents. In fact, the SPLC’s defining characteristic is to fundraise off of defamation.”

Cotton noted in the letter to the IRS commissioner, citing SPLC financial documents, that the leftist organization has made lots of money by targeting conservative groups with allegations that they are hate groups–regardless of the veracity of such allegations. “This business model has paid well. The SPLC has accrued more than $500 million in assets,” Cotton wrote. “According to the group’s most recent financial statement, it holds $121 million offshore in non-U.S. equity funds. The SPLC uses these assets to pay its executives lavish salaries far higher than the comparable household average.” Cotton’s letter cites a number of recent investigative reports by the media into SPLC’s standards and culture, including a recently-published CNN exposé where staff alleged racism and sexism running rampant throughout the leftist group’s organizational structure.

“Famous civil rights group suffers from ‘systemic culture of racism and sexism,’ staffers say,” was the headline in CNN’s March 29 article by Nick Valencia and Pamela Kirkland. “Some employees at the Southern Poverty Law Center say the legendary civil rights nonprofit group suffers from a ‘systemic culture of racism and sexism within its workplace,'” Valencia and Kirkland wrote. “The SPLC, which has been on the front line of the fight against racial inequality and injustice in the United States since 1971, has been thrust into chaos after allegations over its treatment of minority and female employees. The claims have been followed by changes in its leadership and a company-wide review.”

Cotton also cites a New York Times report from Alan Blinder published on March 22 that Cotton noted described the SPLC as “in turmoil” while citing SPLC employee claims that the organization and its leadership are “complicit in decades of racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and/or assault.” Both Richard Cohen, the organization’s president, and Morris Dees, the organization’s co-founder, have been pushed out in recent days amid these scandals — and the SPLC has named an interim president to lead the group for now. “Based on these reports, and in the interest of protecting taxpayer dollars from a racist and sexist slush fund devoted to defamation, I believe that the SPLC’s conduct warrants a serious and thorough investigation,” Cotton wrote to the IRS commissioner. “Engaging in systematic defamation is not a tax-exempt purpose: Federal law requires nonprofits classified as 501(c)(3) organizations to comply with IRS guidelines and have a ‘tax-exempt purpose.’ While IRS guidance lists several examples of tax-exempt purposes, engaging in defamation as a business model is of course not one of them. The SPLC defames other organizations in several ways.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/02/exclusive-tom-cotton-pushes-irs-to-investigate-southern-poverty-law-centers-tax-exempt-status/

Comey to Trump Supporters: ‘Your President Tried to Burn Down’ the DOJ, FBI

Tuesday on CNN during an interview with chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, former FBI Director James Comey said President Donald Trump supporters should be concerned that Trump “tried to burn down the Department of Justice and the FBI.”

When asked about the president referring to the Mueller probe as a witch-hunt, Comey said, “First, take a look in the mirror and ask what happened to Bob Mueller and the mean being corrupt and evil and a nest of deep state traitors that they reached a conclusion that the president is happy with. Just don’t move in front of that. Your president tried to burn down the Department of Justice and the FBI and that matters. Take a look in the mirror and ask what you have learned from that experience. Second, you have fired all of us if we didn’t investigate what we learned in the summer of 2016 when we got smoke, not fire, but smoke that Americans might have assisted the Russian effort. We had to investigate, that and no serious person could think otherwise, and it was done in a serious way, and it reached a serious result, and now we all ought to get transparency on.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/02/comey-to-trump-supporters-your-president-tried-to-burn-down-the-doj-fbi/

North Carolina Republican Party chairman charged in bribery case

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it had charged the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Robert “Robin” Hayes, and a major political donor in a corruption scheme that targeted a state official.

According to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, Hayes worked with business executive Greg Lindberg to bribe state insurance commissioner Mike Causey. Causey reported the effort to law enforcement officials and cooperated in the investigation, authorities say. The two men, along with insurance executives John Gray, 68, and John Palermo, 63, were charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. Hayes is also charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All four men pleaded not guilty.

Lawyers for Hayes and Lindberg said their clients looked forward to clearing their names in court. Lawyers for Gray and Palermo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to the indictment, the four men promised to spend millions of dollars on Causey’s re-election if he would remove an insurance regulator that oversaw companies under Lindberg’s control. They said they would set up independent campaign committees that would spend $1.5 million on Causey’s re-election bid and funnel another $250,000 through the state Republican party. Hayes encouraged the others to transfer the money in smaller amounts to avoid detection, the indictment said. “My concern, any large amount like that’s gonna draw attention,” he said, according to the charges.

Lindberg is the founder and chairman of investment company Eli Global and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group, which controls several insurance companies. Neither company was charged, and Global Bankers said it was cooperating with the investigation. Lindberg is the state’s biggest political donor in recent years, with total contributions of more than $5 million, mostly to Republicans, according to news site WRAL. Hayes served in the U.S. Congress from 1999 to 2009. He led the state party between 2011 and 2013, when it won a dominant majority in the state legislature, and again since 2016. He announced yesterday that he would step down from the position.

Lindberg and Gray also enlisted another public official, who made several calls to Causey on their behalf after they contributed $150,000 to a political committee supporting his candidacy, according to the indictment. That official, identified by Politico as U.S. Republican Representative Mark Walker, was not charged. A spokesman for Walker said he had committed no wrongdoing and had assisted the investigation.

The North Carolina Republican Party said it has been cooperating with the probe for several months. The party has suffered a series of setbacks after several years in which it controlled the state government, pushing through spending cuts, voting restrictions, and other conservative policies.

An absentee ballot fraud scheme run by a party operative has forced the rerun of a 2018 U.S. congressional election, and a federal court ruled last year that state Republicans illegally drew U.S. congressional districts to benefit their party. Democrat Roy Cooper was elected as governor in 2016, breaking the Republican grip on state politics, and Democrats made significant gains in state assembly elections last year.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-northcarolina/north-carolina-republican-party-chairman-charged-in-bribery-case-idUSKCN1RE1UJ